


From Where the Sunlight Hits

by strangeispowerful



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alana Beck is Too Good for This World, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety Disorder, Bi Evan Hansen, Bucket List, Connor deserves better, Evan Hansen has OCD, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Connor Murphy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, The Murphy's are Trying™, references to a past suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 102,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeispowerful/pseuds/strangeispowerful
Summary: I’ve never really believed in fate as much. But.Connor squeezes my hand, and I look at him, and he looks at me and smiles. His face is one million colors in the firelight. I don’t know what any of it means, but some part of me feels like I don’t have to. Like it’s okay to just be. In a surge of will, I squeeze back a little.Or: Evan and Connor come up with a bucket list to take control over their lives—Pining and song lyrics ensue.
Relationships: Alana Beck & Evan Hansen & Jared Kleinman & Connor Murphy & Zoe Murphy, Alana Beck & Zoe Murphy, Alana Beck/Jared Kleinman, Connor Murphy & Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen & Connor Murphy, Evan Hansen & Jared Kleinman, Evan Hansen & Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Treebros - Relationship
Comments: 172
Kudos: 191





	1. Evan

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning! I hope you enjoy! I'll have tw's posted at the beginning of any chapter that needs it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan gets something valuable returned to him.

_ Dear friend, _

_ So much has happened, and I think it’s worth it to write it all down.  _

_ Maybe I feel like I owe it to you, so that when you start getting bad again, you can remember this and know that things get better. Sometimes it takes so, so long. You think that you’re in the dark forever. Especially when it gets a lot worse before the good stuff even comes near the horizon. But I promise you that it always comes. You have to believe it’ll come. _

_ I’m sorry— I’m not very good with writing. My thoughts are bursts of energy at best, really, and writing is like trying to take a clear photograph of graffiti on a moving train as it goes past. Everything is slow on the end of the camera, but my mind is still going so fast. My hands can’t write quickly enough. _

_ I really wish it were easy to explain to you the extent of everything that has happened in these past months. I wish I could blink and have all of the words on the pages, and you could read them and smile. But to get that far, I have to put in the time. I hope it’s worth it.  _

_ To be really honest, It’s hard to look at it myself right now without feeling unworthy of it all, and it’s better just to slow down and rethink it all through. Try my best to relive it. That’s why I’m writing to you. Like somehow I’ll find the reasons for being okay with feeling worthy in these words. But even if I don’t, I’ll still try my best to finish the story for you. _

_ I think that’s what this is. Weird right? My therapist told me that writing letters can be beneficial, especially because you don’t even have to send them if you don’t want to. I hope I send them. Even though this is so much about my own life, and it’s bold of me to think you’d care, it’s worth a shot, I guess. Someone needs to hear this. I need to prove to myself that all of this good stuff happening to me isn’t just a figment. _

\--

SEPTEMBER

\--

  
  
  


Some days are better than others.

I was wondering. Do you ever feel like the world looks right through you? Because everyone is first-person in their own life—people that you don’t know are just the extras, the background characters. So what if no one knows me? Do I even exist?

Sorry to open like that, it’s kind of dark. I understand if you don’t know what I’m talking about, but it feels better to try and put it into words, especially when I’m sitting in my English class and trying my best to pay attention, but my thoughts are running in an electrical-circuit loop. It’s a lot harder to focus than usual; I keep taking my pencil and running the tip along the cross-hatched texture of the palm of my cast, which is new. 

I’ve only had it for two days and it’s already bugging me. I can’t even take a shower without breaking out industrial sized Ziploc bags and duct tape. I left a note for my mom to buy plastic wrap the next time she goes to the store, but she’s been really busy this past week—especially for the fact that football season just started and that people don’t seem to know how to hydrate properly in a heat wave—so I don’t know if she’ll get around to it anytime soon.

The teacher has the lights off, the windows open, but the room is still sweltering hot. Heat waves like this usually happen in August, not September, but I’m not surprised with the kind of year it’s been: backwards and upside-down. People are sprawled out across their desks, fanning themselves with the reading homework. I’m wearing a collared shirt, and it still feels restrictive. It’s miserable, and I don’t think the school has the budget to fix the broken air conditioning.

The class period is almost over anyway, and people are just sitting on their phones as the teacher— I should probably introduce her, because she’s one of the better ones— Mrs. Christie, puts back another bottle of water. I don’t really have anything to do, so I’m sitting here, slumped in the seat, staring at the desk.

Junior year of high school has gone both surprisingly well and suffocatingly badly. For one, I’ve managed to keep unwanted contact to a minimum. At lunch, I eat on the mostly abandoned patio with Jared—sometimes people hide around the corners to smoke, but they usually don’t even look in our direction— and even he disappears every so often, like lately, so that I can read or draw. My grades are okay. I get all of the homework done, but I always score low seventies on tests because as soon as I realize that those assignments are more _ important _ , I forget everything, panic, and stare at the paper. I have therapy on Wednesdays, which is… awkward. Because I’m always afraid that I won’t have enough to say to fill up the time, and then I get there, I realize I have too much to talk about, and I worry about going over.

But school is just like an energy pit, and I’m trying my best not to say that in an angsty, pessimistic way. It feels like everything here is a place-holder—get good grades to pass the SAT to get into a good college to get a good job and make good money. It’s all expectation and no success. Even the one-hundreds you get on quizzes last for less than a few moments before you start worrying about the next one. It’s like taking on water, even without noticing that everyone is watching and judging you.

Well, some days  _ are  _ better than others. I do get my work done, and I do get by. Not surprisingly, Jared is enough of a social resource for me, sometimes even too much. And we never talk about anything too serious, so at least he’s not expecting grand monologues regarding climate change or decline in modern America from me. He usually just shows me vines on his phone and makes references to them, getting frustrated when I don’t understand them. Other than that, I stare at the whiteboard in Pre-Calc and learn new phrases in ASL. I have art projects and unit tests. Rinse and repeat.

In English, our required reading is Watership Down by Richard Adams. If you haven’t heard of it, it doesn’t have anything to do with sinking ships, like what I thought. It’s about rabbits, and how they have to go on a long and dangerous journey to make a new home for themselves. I really enjoy it so far, but most of the class hasn’t even read it, I don’t think. Mrs. Christie doesn’t really care. Her policy is that your grade is in your own hands. She stands up from her desk and starts putting things into her purse. I think I can see wavy lines of heat rising in the room. “Alright, guys, reading homework is chapters fourteen and fifteen, okay?”

The class mostly just grumbles. The air feels heavy and humid. 

When the bell rings, everyone scrambles up with their already packed backpacks and starts to leave. The weight of eight hours of scrutinization lifts from my shoulders, and I put my hands on the desk to push myself up, wincing as my left arm throbs. The backpack gets caught on the cast when I try to put it on, and I have to take the time to get it unstuck, but none of that matters because as soon as I turn to leave, someone’s standing at my desk.

I swallow. I don’t know Connor, so there shouldn’t be any reason that he’s standing here. He has a bored expression on his face, and I wonder how he isn’t melting in that grey hoodie. I bite on the inside of my cheek, wondering if maybe he’ll leave. He doesn’t.

“So… What happened to your arm?”

I’m so surprised that the feeble words that had begun to build up just disappear. 

The feeling that everything would be different after falling from that tree was short lived. I expected a new outlook, maybe. At least I’d gotten the inevitable physical injury that comes with living over with for the next few years. Maybe my mom would be a little more understanding. A little less pushy— why? It doesn’t really add up, does it? I’m sorry.

Instead, I was ambushed by her as I was walking out of the door— _ Hey, I know. Why don’t you go around today and ask the other kids to sign your cast? Hmm? How ‘bout that? _ I’d tried to smile and had likely only grimaced. I could see it in the slump of her shoulders. What she doesn’t understand is that it’s hard enough having to pretend like I’m not just a background character without everyone expecting me to self-insert into other people’s narratives. But I just agreed, took the Sharpie from her. 

I’ve been trying all day to get someone to sign the cast, just so that she doesn’t see that it’s empty and get that look on her face. Her eyebrows turnt up, lips pressed together. Pity and disappointment. Prepared to encourage me to try again the next time. 

I wish she would stop assuming that I even want there to be a next time. 

“Oh, I um, I fell out of a tree, actually.” 

“You fell out of a tree.” He starts laughing a little but tries to smother it. “That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, oh my god.”

“Yeah.” I look down. The Sharpie is heavy in my back pocket.

“So,” he coughs. “Um, nobody’s signed it.”

“Oh, no. They haven’t.”

“Well. I will. Do you have a marker?”

I bite down even harder on my cheek and resist the urge to do anything. I can feel my face about to twitch and instead lean down, looking through my backpack for something that doesn’t exist. “Really, you don’t have to,” I mutter.

“I should. It’s completely empty. Shouldn’t Kleinman have signed it?” I give him a look from where I’m leaning and his gaze darts away. “Well, I’ve seen you sitting together, so…”

There’s a deeply awkward silence. The heat presses, and that is definitely not helping with the sweaty-hands situation that has started to develop. “We’re— we’re not really… friends—I mean, we’re friends and we do sit together but, I mean, It’s more like, we were kid friends— _ friends as kids— _ and we’re just, it’s more like we’re  _ family  _ friends, you know?” I realize I’m rambling and press my lips together, the result of trying to fill up the emptiness of the quiet before it gets too deep.

“No,” he says, voice dry. 

Will he ever leave? Do I need him to sign the cast? At least my mom will see it. But what if he feels how sweaty my hands are when I hand over the marker? I wipe my palm on my jeans to no avail and fish the marker out of my pocket, holding it between a thumb and forefinger and handing it to him so that our hands don’t come anywhere near touching.

He uncaps the Sharpie with his teeth and, realizing I’m cringing away, I try to relax my shoulders. Connor gives me an odd look and pulls the cast a little closer to him— my arm lets out a pulse of pain and I make a noise despite myself. He looks up, realizes.

“Sorry,” he rushes, and I just nod stupidly and look down. He takes the Sharpie and my eyes go wide as he copies  _ CONNOR  _ in thick, black script across my arm. God, it takes up the whole cast. Jared’s going to see it—

“There,” he says, putting down my arm, albeit rather gently, and capping the Sharpie. “Now we can both pretend that we have friends.”

I wince and take the marker back— I’m not focused, thinking about the giant letters and the questions they’ll warrant—and our hands brush. A jolt of adrenaline shoots through me and I cram my hands into my back pockets. He gives me another look.

“Sorry.” I grit my teeth. My arm pulses a little, sore.

“For what?”

“I, uh. Never mind.”  
“Okay.” He crosses his arms. The lines of his face are severe, harsh; the cut of his jaw, the solid, icy color of his pupils. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Connor turns, digs around in the bag at his hip. What he produces makes my mouth immediately go dry. The world seems to wobble a little around me. “It got left behind last Thursday. You went to the nurse, I think, and when they came to get your stuff it was still sitting under the chair.”

My hands are shaking as I reach out and take the journal from him as he hands it to me. It’s the soft-book, the one with the white marbled cover that my therapist got me for Christmas last year, when the World History AP Exam was a few months away and I had started getting caught in obsessive loops.

It was getting bad—worse than it’d been before. The OCD really only acts up when the anxiety gets beyond its usual realm of territory claim in my head, and even then, it’s not like what people think—for me, it’s not washing my hands over and over or checking to make sure the door’s locked. It’s mostly all in my head. Like thinking something, and then wondering why I thought it, if I’m a bad person for thinking it, if it’s normal to think it. It would eventually subside, but then, a day, or a few hours, or a few minutes later, I was back, looping around: Why? Am I a bad person? Is it normal?

Realizing that supposed normal people don’t think like that wouldn’t help either.

When I told my therapist—from now on, I’ll call her by her name, Katherine—about the loops, she said that it was a symptom of OCD. I protested, because, alas, I was not a hand-washer or lock-checker. I realize now that it was naive to not realize by then that mental illness is not that simple; it’s never that simple. She’d given me the book. She told me to write in it when I got caught in a loop, to write about anything. I’d felt stupid and stuffed it under my bed, but when I got caught in a particularly self-destructive one on a weekend in April, I’d dug it out and nearly broken my pencil on the first page. 

My cheeks are burning. He probably read it. The handwriting is messy from my shaking hands, and some of the pages have dried water spots on them. After the Exam had passed and the looming anxiety had retreated back to it’s usual sixty-five per-cent, I’d written in the journal as a way to calm down. I never re-read my entries. There’s even some poetry in there.  _ Oh, my god... _

“I didn’t read it,” Connor says, putting his hands up. “I wouldn’t do that. That’s such a dick move. I just… didn’t want to leave it laying there.”

I stick the book under my arm, maybe more than a little protective over it, and bite back down on my cheek. According to Jared, Connor is the kind of person that you don’t want to mess with. He beat someone up when we were Freshman. He smokes cigarettes, probably drinks. He definitely does drugs. Last year, Connor went missing for the last week of school, and I’ve overheard people saying that he was suspended for smoking pot in one of the bathrooms.

But something about the way he looks right now makes me feel smaller. Weak— and not in the sense of him breaking me down. It’s like I recognize something on his face, some familiar thread of worry. Like I can see the gears turning behind his eyes, and I’m able to note the places where they get stuck. Like I’ve gotten stuck on those exact same places.

“Thank you,” I say, and my voice is barely a whisper. The day has been so long. Some days are better than others, and this is not one of the good ones. He just shrugs, uncrosses his arms, and walks away. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is! Finally posted! If you enjoyed, please consider sharing with a friend or taking a second to leave a comment! It would mean the world! Because I'm eager to share Connor's POV, I'll be posting Chapter 2 in a day or so, and after that, I'll settle in a consistent posting schedule. I know exactly where this story is going and I can't wait to share <3


	2. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor isn't ready and Zoe leaves without him. Evan Hansen gets offered a cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's super soon after posting chapter one, but waiting to post requires patience and who's heard of her? I wanted to get Connor's voice out into the world, but, after this, I will remain consistent! maybe!

_ Sept 9 _

_ I sat down with paper and a pen and stared at it for thirty minutes. It really took me that long to realize that I don’t know how to properly write a fucking letter. I googled it: address the person you’re talking to with a salutation, start with pleasantries, and continue on to your first body paragraph. End formally with a phrase (sincerely, all the best, warm(est) regards) and sign your name; it said that it’s formal to open with ‘dear’, but formality has never served me before, so I see no use for it now. _

_ It is with the best intentions that I now tell you that I am going to either break, abuse, or treat with a healthy dose of sarcasm every instruction given to me. No, I will not say ‘dear’. And if paragraphs are five sentences, then I will write every section of this letter with a satisfying four. I can see you now, in your room, or opening this on your way back from the mailbox, your eyebrows furrowed—that is, if these letters ever leave my desk. You’re wondering why. _

_ Fuck. This is all wrong. I hate writing. Cynthia got me this stupid journal with stupid expensive paper and a fucking fountain pen to write letters with that I’m never going to send. I don’t even sound like myself. I hate writing. The words always come out false and just— I don’t know, just wrong, because I’m always worried that they aren’t good enough. _

_ Can I start over? Is that allowed? WikiHow doesn’t say either way.  _

_ I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, because writing is supposed to feel cathartic but I just feel trapped, still. My mind is moving too fast and the words won’t come out fast enough. They get lost on the way because my mind is phrases ahead and my hand is still stuck on whether it’s  _ acquaintance  _ or  _ acquaintence. 

_ This isn’t supposed to be a bad letter. This is supposed to be me saying that everything is going to be okay. _

_ This is stupid.  _

_ Well. _

  
  


_ Sincerely,  _

_ Me. _

  
  


_ Because I’m not signing my fucking name. _

  
  


\--

  
  
  


I stand in the driveway and flip Zoe off as she drives to school without me.

I don’t  _ really  _ mind walking to school. Really it’s just annoying that she’s petty about this kind of stuff: if I don’t refill the water pitcher after filling up my water bottle, or if I play my music too loud, or if I take too long to get up in the morning. 

“Real  _ fucking  _ mature!” I shout, and the Volkswagen Bug beeps a ‘ _ screw you’  _ little beep back at me.

It’s eight-eleven in the morning. Ten minutes ago, she shouted up the stairs that if I wasn’t ready, she was leaving without me. It’s past the first-month-of-school grace period in which Cynthia insists that we ride together, so she’s free to leave, but I’d just figured she was being moody. I’d dragged myself out of bed and sat there doing nothing for ten minutes just to make her mad. And now I’m standing in the driveway, and it’s  _ humid. _

When the annual heat wave didn’t come in July or August, people started freaking out and thinking that it wasn’t going to happen at all this year. But with the second week of September, the heat came down worse than usual, smothering and suffocating. It’d be fine if it was  _ dry  _ heat, but it’s heavy and thick and makes you feel as if you’re swimming. 

Zoe’s car turns the corner signalling the point of no return, which means now I either start walking, or give in to Cynthia taking me, which will never happen. I slump and take a step. Sweat has already broken out across my forehead and I haven’t even left the front yard.

I don’t really understand why this stuff happens. It just does. Zoe abandoning me at home isn’t that big of a deal, but I know at dinner tonight, Cynthia’s going to ask her why and it’s going to blow up into the big argument about nothing that it always turns out to be. Larry will interject himself because he likes to hear his own voice, and Zoe will find some way to make it about the fact that she’s  _ sick of pretending that everything’s fine— _ this doesn’t mean that I don’t know that she really  _ is _ sick of it, that it really does push on her, but when she brings it up at the table, using it as leverage, it just takes away from the fact that she’s upset at all.

Above, the sky is a patchwork of solemn grey. The clouds are dense and dark, and tiny raindrops have already started pattering on the sidewalk, which means that the heat is only going to get heavier as the day goes on. I quicken my pace, rummaging around in my bag for my headphones. They’re a tangled mess, but I can’t be bothered to straighten them out and so I just shove them into my ears and scroll around on my playlist for something suitable.

I’m able to walk for a solid two minutes before I’m annoyed again.

Something about Tuesdays just feel… irritable. Restless. The world passes by in a monotonous scene of grey: grey houses, grey sky, the sidewalks and the asphalt. The failed attempts of gardening done by other people living in the subdivision lie wilted across the lawns. The music is grey, too. It’s too early to listen to anything loud, but the guitar and gloomy lyrics only make me feel even more tired.

My mind wanders though my feet are en route to the school. At first, I think about skipping, but I don’t have anywhere to go and no one to do anything with. I think about the box of cigarettes lodged at the bottom of my bag and make a note to smoke at some point today before I completely lose my mind. And then I think about what happened yesterday.

Maybe this is going to make me sound weird—I already am weird. But I don’t think that it’s too heavy of an assumption to say that everyone watches other people. Like, the people that you’ve gone to school with for years, but have never talked to? You can see that they have an instrument case, and know that they’re in Band. Maybe you notice when they’re absent, or, if you’re especially observant, you can even pick up their names. Everyone watches other people, notices when they get a haircut or new shoes.

I just watch specific people. Or specific  _ person. _

At first, I’d thought his name was Mark, because that’s what the English teacher called out on the first B-Day of school. I’ve seen him around since the… second grade, maybe… but I’ve never gotten his name. We don’t exactly run in the same circles, not that I have any circles at all. But it was convenient to look at him because his desk is directly across the classroom from mine, and he’s always looking away—at the floor, in the sketchbook he scribbles in— so I don’t have to worry about him thinking I’m a stalker, or something.

And then, last Thursday. He came in looking pensive, strangled, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. It wasn’t a good day for me, either. And at one point, he got up and talked to the teacher and then left, and twenty minutes later the phone rang and the teacher said, “Does anyone want to bring Evan’s stuff to the nurse’s office?”

It’d seemed kind of weird to me, especially because it was eighth period and the day was almost over anyway, but some random person had raised their hand and taken his backpack and water bottle and left the room already.

I’d kept staring at his seat, even though he wasn’t in it, bored—and that’s when I saw the notebook. It was small, white, easy to miss. I had immediately felt a little surge of worry, because it had been left behind. The person who delivered his stuff was already back by then, so Mark— _ Evan—  _ must be gone already.

When the bell had rang, I’d taken my bag and carefully walked over to the desk. I don’t know what I expected to happen, like maybe it’d explode or something. I’d crouched down, taken it up in my hands. It was a soft cover, easily bendable; the cover flopped open and I saw a brief page of scrawled writing before I’d flipped it closed again.

I’d stood there for a minute, wondering what the fuck my place was in picking up some guy’s—probably important and personal—journal. I didn’t want to leave it there. But I didn’t want to give it to the teacher either. I don’t know why. I thought it would be safer if I delivered it myself.

When I was home and realized that I wasn’t going to see him again until Monday, I realized how fucking stupid of an idea it was. If I would’ve given it to the teacher, even turned it in to the front office, he could’ve gotten it by tomorrow. And now I was in possession of someone’s personal shit. What if I got charged for stealing—I don’t know how that works. People are quick to judge me, though. 

And so I’d stuck it deep into the back of one of my drawers and closed it and tried not to think about it. And on Monday morning I’d carefully taken it out, stopped for a second to look at it. It was worn, but still in good condition. The edges of some of the pages were wavy from water damage. I’d placed it carefully in my bag and wondered whether or not Evan would even be at school. Maybe he had a cold, though that’s not likely in this weather.

Evan had had a cast in English. If anything, it made it easier to talk to him. I didn’t have to just come up and say  _ by the way, I have your missing journal. I didn’t steal it, I promise.  _ But when I finally had given it to him, he’d looked spooked. Probably because he’s heard all about me. 

The heat presses, and the day stretches out in front of me. I realize that on my face is the kind of scowl that only steel wool can erase. And then the rain starts coming down harder, and I just stick my face toward the sky and try to remember why I decided to give high school another shot, anyway.

\--

It’s raining by my lunch period, really pelting down. You can hear it echoing through the cavernous room of the cafeteria, only underlining the already thunderous sound of so many people talking. I grit my teeth and walk forward. With the storm’s dim light filtering through the tiny rectangular windows above, the whole room likes brighter and more artificial. I can see Zoe sitting with some of her jazz friends. People working on homework. An oblivious couple making out in a corner. There’s nowhere to sit, really. The abandoned hallway that I usually waste my time in is closed for testing. 

I walk forward and try to keep the anger from rising up. I’ve already been in a bad mood all day. I really don't want it to get worse, and I know that it probably  _ will.  _ I want a cigarette.  _ Bad.  _ And so I squint my eyes and try to navigate across the cafeteria toward the deserted patio.

The patio is one of the best things about this high school. It may be cramped, overcrowded, and horrifically dirty, but, from what I remember about last year, the patio is almost always completely empty. Because the windows are so high up, if you sit at the right angle, no-one will be able to see the smoke if you want a cigarette, especially when the rain is like this, blowing in sheets. The monitors are too busy pulling apart fistfights, to care, anyway.

But as I approach the glass doors, I see something that makes me stop. Evan is out on the patio, sitting alone in the rain.

My first thought is  _ great,  _ because now if I want to smoke I’ll have to have Evan trying not to watch me and wondering if I really stole his journal the whole time. He’ll probably tell me off to a teacher. Though, looking at him, really looking, he’s just minding his own business. Slumped down over his sketchbook, trying to lean in a certain way that shelters him from the rain. Why doesn’t he go inside?

The noise reaches a peak. It makes my head pulse, my wrists pulse, my jaw clench. My hand is already on the cool glass of the door, and I know that beyond, it’s quiet, even if it is hotter, and Evan is sitting alone. No Jared, who would most certainly  _ not  _ mind his own business.

I wonder if he even registers being alone. If he realizes his situation: that he’s sitting in a rainstorm on one of the hottest days of the year, by himself. One of my old therapists, Simon, asked me once if I felt lonely, and I said,  _ sure, Simon, I’m fucking lonely.  _ I don’t know if I even understand the concept of lonely, though. To feel that way, you need to have something different to base it off of. A time when you had people to talk to. It’s always been this way—well, it has for a really long time. Especially when Zoe and I started to grow apart.

The din of talking fades into the pattering of rain. A warm breeze blows across my face, and I close my eyes without meaning to, realizing that the door has shut behind me, and that I’ve stepped outside. The stuffy air is clean, smelling of summer and rain. I’m soaked in a matter of seconds.

Evan looks up from where he’s sitting. He may be sitting under an awning, but the rain blows right into his face; his hair is plastered against his forehead by it, a darker color than usual. He’s still hunched over his sketchbook, grey eyes squinting.

I walk forward and gingerly sit down across from him; he looks back down at his sketchbook, eyes closing even further, eyebrows knitting. Rummaging around in my bag, I pull out a lighter and a cigarette from the box I have, tucked at the bottom under the handouts and the pencil-stabbed erasers and the books and the bent-out-of-shape paper clips.

“Do you want a cigarette?” I ask, kind of just to fuck with him, really. Trying to break the silence.

He looks up again, alarmed, like he didn’t expect me to talk. “I, uh. No, no thanks. I don’t… smoke.”

I shrug, light the cigarette. Take a drag of it and puff out into the mist, holding the cigarette under the table so that the smoke rises through the crosshatched blue-plastic tabletop. My shoulders relax a little bit, now that my ears aren’t ringing. 

“So. Do you sit alone in the rain often?” I say because I want to say something but I have no clue what.

He just looks at me, seeming incredibly uncomfortable. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth and takes a breath. “Uh, Jared wasn’t… he hasn’t been here, lately.”

“You still could’ve sat inside, right?”

“It’s just… it’s too loud. That’s kind of weird, sorry.”

“No, don’t be. You’re right.” I shoot a glance at the doors. “It’s fucking evil in there.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes. We both sit in each other’s presence, letting the rain fall on and around us. I have my cigarette, and Evan sketches. He cracks the knuckles on his right hand, and looks up, still not making eye contact. 

“I never said thank you.”

“For the journal?”

This deters him-- I almost wish I hadn’t said it. “I just meant that I never thanked you. For signing my cast. I  _ did  _ for the journal, but I thought that I should say it again anyway… I don’t know.”

“Oh.” There’s a rubber band around my wrist and I take it from under the sleeve of my hoodie and tie my hair back because it’s wet and annoying and dripping down the neck of my hoodie. “You don’t have to thank me. It just seems like… I don’t know.” I stop, because, indeed, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. “It’s such a small thing to have someone sign a cast. But small things matter.”

Evan’s eyes shift up and meet mine, briefly. His eyebrows have risen, and he just looks… surprised. As if people don’t usually speak this way to him.

“Anyway.” I take another pull on the cigarette, and breathe out the words. “It was just kind of sad.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He’s smiling. It’s kind of amazing, really, just lighting up his whole face. You never realize how wonderful a face is until it looks at you in this way: his eyes crinkle a little at the edges, his eyebrows turn upwards in a sheepish manner. His teeth are white and straight, and his freckles seem lighter, less of a layer on top of his face and more set into his skin, warm, like the sun has placed them there on purpose.  _ Everything _ about him seems purposeful in this moment, but then the smile fades, and he shifts back into his usual self. It’s like watching a 3D movie without the glasses on.

I realize, then, that I’m smiling too, and let it dissolve into the rain. Thunder crackles in the distance, omniscient, as if it can tell that the small moment of light has ended.

He goes back to drawing, shielding the paper lightly with his non-cast hand. The wind, at least, has let up a little bit, and we’re granted a moment of reprieve from the cold sluice of rainwater. He has this intense look on his face, as if whatever he’s drawing is incredibly important, like it holds the answer to the universe or something. 

Stubbing out my cigarette on the wet table, I stand up, leaving my bag on the seat. I check that it is completely extinguished before flicking it into a trashcan, and then do something reckless and spur of the moment.

I sit back down right next to him—I don’t really even know why.

Evan looks up, as if he’s startled. He’s jiggling his knee under the table, and for a minute, I’m afraid that he’ll stand up and leave. But he just looks back down at his sketchbook and keeps drawing.

Leaning onto the wetness of the plastic table, I rest my head on a hand. His hand drifts across the paper in a practiced manner, carrying with it a thick black pencil, not graphite: some artsy, probably expensive material. He’s not trying to hide his artwork, and so I look right into his sketchbook; he’s drawing a landscape, a thick, grassy plain with pine trees reaching into the sky. It’s so detailed that I can see the dappled bits of light through the leaves, tiny insects winging around in the grass. Without really noticing it, I can tell my jaw has gone a little slack.

“That’s really amazing.”

He turns his head to me slightly, eyes still trained on the paper. “Oh, thanks. That’s really nice of you. To say that.”

“Yeah, I’m an artist too. But I mostly do illustration, so like, political cartoon style drawings? Very abstract and metaphorical.” I scoot closer to get a better look, and Evan flinches a little but doesn’t move away. “But this…” I trail off, tracing the lines with my eyes, the playing of the shadows and light. “This really is amazing. I  _ wish  _ I could draw like that. It’s so… melancholy. It’s great.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he’s smiling a little again.

“So. Is that the tree that you fell out of?”

“What?”

I point to the huge pine without touching the paper. “The tree. Is that the one that broke your arm?”

Evan’s hand pauses, like he’s thinking. “Oh. Yeah, it is.”

“Holy shit, it’s huge. How far up were you?”

“Like forty feet, I think.”

“ _ Forty feet? As in four stories?  _ And you only broke your arm.” I’m incredulous. “That’s incredible. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

He’s quiet. I suddenly wonder if I’ve intruded in some way. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I don’t usually climb that high. I just… was wondering…”

“ _ Forty feet,”  _ I mutter. “Jesus Christ. You must be superhuman.”

He keeps drawing. The rain keeps raining. After a while, Evan speaks. “Thanks again, for saying you like my art.” He closes up the sketchbook and tucks it into his backpack.

“I’m sorry if I was being personal.” The tapping of my fingers on the table almost lines up to the rainfall. “I didn’t mean to pry or anything. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m sorry if I made you think you were prying. You weren’t.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Sorry.” He realizes his mistake and lets out a tiny laugh. Looking to the window, I see that people are packing up to leave, and I stand. 

“What class do you have now?” I ask, walking to the other side of the table and picking up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

“Oh, uh, on B-days I actually have Illustration third period.”

“Illustration? I just had that class, before lunch. You’re lucky. I have fucking Geometry now.”

Evan laughs a little, and puts his backpack on. We’re both soaking wet, but It’s nice. I feel a little less grey, like now at least my day isn’t one hundred percent shitty. Lighter. We both walk to the glass doors to be let into the cafeteria, and I put a hand on the metal bar to let Evan and myself in.

It’s locked.

“ _ Fuuuuuck,”  _ I breathe, and the sentient thunder echoes again, laughing at us. 

“Uhh,” Evan makes a noise, peeking in through the misty glass. “There must still be some people in there, right?” He knocks on the glass door, and I try to wipe away the condensation.

A few minutes pass, and then I see Zoe, her headphones in, walk into view. “Hey!” I shout, to no avail. Evan waves, as if to catch her attention, and I pound on the glass. “Zoe!”

By some miracle, she turns just in time to see us: dripping, cold, and pounding on a glass door like wild animals going stir crazy at the zoo. Her eyebrows turn up for a second before she makes solid eye contact with me and her lips form the word  _ really?  _ She hurries to the door and opens it, and Evan and I stumble into the coolness of the cafeteria.

“Hey Evan,” she says, and Evan goes right back to his resigned self. 

“Zoe.”

“That’s my name!” She says, smiling, but Evan looks distressed. I shoot an amused look at him.

“I just… I hate that. When someone just responds with the other person’s name. That’s so weird, so, uh, sorry about that. Hey.” He lifts a hand and Zoe nods, awkward, before turning toward me.

“Sorry about making you walk. I’ll see you later,” she says, and punches me lightly on the chest, shouldering her guitar case. “I have to go to Astronomy before I’m late.” She turns to Evan, and calls out a “ _ Later!”  _ before heading off toward the doors.

I look at him, and he is somehow both pale and flushed at the same time. I quirk an eyebrow, and he looks at me and miraculously becomes even more of both.

“Sorry. I’m not that good at… talking.”

“Yep. I get that.”

He doesn’t say anything and we both start walking to class. We reach the foot of the stairs, and I realize that I’m going to have to go up and he’s going to have to continue to the fine arts hallway and I really don’t want that to happen because it feels so nice to finally _ speak  _ to someone. And so I ask, “Can I give you my phone number?”

Evan turns, and his eyes are wide. “What?”

_ Damn it. Fuck. Why did I say that? _ “Just so… If I need to ask you about English homework, or something. You know.”

He looks incredibly conflicted, as if he doesn’t know how to respond. He’s cheeks and nose are pink, probably from being outside in the rain. We’re both dripping a little onto the floor still. I’m overcome by the worry that what I’ve said has an obvious answer.  _ Of course he doesn’t want your number, idiot. Why would he want your number? To talk to you about normal stuff, like a normal person? Of course not, because you’re not. Fucking. Normal.  _

_ “ _ Yeah, actually. That would be… it’d be kind of nice.”

I feel strange. This has never happened before (well, it has once, but that was way too long ago to count). As I grab a spare piece of notebook paper from my bag and scribble down my number, I press my lips together. I realize that I want to know him. I want to talk to him on the phone about stupid things. I want to vent, and I want to be vented to. And I’m so overcome by this deluge of random and unprecedented  _ want  _ that I barely hear the two minute bell ring.

“I really need to go,” Evan says, looking up. I hand him the paper, and he smiles faintly. I wonder if he feels the same way, about having a friend for once. “Thanks.”

“Bye, Evan.” I say, but I turn and start going up the stairs before he can respond.

  
  


\--

Geometry passes in another hour of notes that I don’t really understand. I scribble on my hand and the desk and don’t watch the whiteboard and think about the way that my thoughts come in disjointed fragmentations. The teacher takes up the homework, and I don’t have mine,  _ I left it at home _ . Then she’s passing out homework, and I must be able to tell the future because I somehow can predict that I’ll accidentally leave this sheet at home, too. 

The bell rings. I’m in the row that sits closest to the door, and I grab my bag and hurry out before the possibility that the teacher can confront me about not doing assignments comes true.

_ Fuck, me. I have fucking tennis, now. _

Okay, clarification. I hate tennis, if this wasn’t already an obvious fact. 

At the end of July, Simon the Therapist decided to talk to Cynthia about natural ways to boost my mood. He recommended three things, the holy trinity of all therapy techniques: Habits, Hobbies, and Exercise (I later learned the godforsaken acronym for this: HHE, or Happy, Healthy and Enthusiastic. I wonder how many meetings it took to come up with  _ that  _ piece of gold right there. A real money-maker). 

Zoe and I were picking classes for the school year-- Zoe a Sophomore, taking over three advanced courses, and me, a Junior now, taking less advanced classes than her because I’ve always been behind (English 3 is my only on-level class, for the fact that the standardized questions are grammar stuff and interpretation. All easy. And for assigned reading, well, thank you, Sparknotes). Cynthia sees my choices—Piano, Illustration—and says that I should try something  _ new. And she’s already pushed me into Research class! _

Fucking  _ tennis.  _ Do you understand this shit? Because no matter how hard I try, I always resolve back to  _ fucking tennis.  _

It met all three of her criteria. It was active, it was a hobby,  _ and  _ it would encourage good habits because I could get to become friends with the other people on the tennis team. Lucky for me, the team consists of exactly eight girls and one other guy. I think it’s important to point out that he’s a Freshman.

We were sitting out one day earlier this year watching the two girls on our side of the court team play against two others—I think they’re names were something like Courtney, or Paige, or something else remotely sporty—and this kid turns to me, and I shit you not, says “Nice view, right?” This Freshman kid just sits there, talking to  _ me,  _ eyes glued on the girls. “You can kind of see up their shorts.”

I kind of stared at him, giving him that icy cold death glare that I can call upon as a sort of bullshit intervention. I looked him straight in the eyes, letting the silence stretch. And then, right as his uncomfortable levels peaked, I said, “I’m gay.”

He didn’t talk to me after that. My theories are that he’s either so heterosexual that he’s afraid I’ll rub off on him, or that he’s suppressed the fact that he’s gay and finds me threatening, though I guess the threatening thing is true either way. I basically have the whole locker room to myself, because he changes in a bathroom stall. Which is good, because guess what I,  _ too,  _ have to wear?

_ Fucking shorts. _

When I get to the locker rooms, it’s just as I’ve expected: empty. I take the moment to inwardly scream at the fact that today and every day is incredibly annoying. At least I talked to Evan. That was okay. 

I change. I stare at myself in the mirror and decide to retain a  _ fuck this  _ attitude, and then I endure tennis in the rain.

“ _ Excellent backhand, Deena!”  _ Calls out the coach that I can’t remember the name of. “Connor! Sharpen up your technique, please.”

I miss the ball on purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one down! Will post another one for s u r e next week. Please feel free to leave comments/kudos, etc. They mean everything to me! And if you like what you see, subscribe so that you'll be notified every time I update :) ! Other than that, hope that your day is going well~


	3. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Connor share a bowl of Froot Loops. Zoe makes a sudden entrance.

_ I probably should bring something up. I don’t want to make it awkward—wait, this is a letter. Okay. Hold on. I just… I feel like I should write it down because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it’s been pulling at me and… I don’t know. _

_ When I was seven, my dad left my mom and moved to Colorado. It’s… it really isn’t that big of a deal, I guess. Lots of people’s parents don’t stay together, something about marriage and divorce rates in the modern world. I’m not trying to make this into a sob story or something. But it did happen. It makes sense to tell you that. _

_ He was there like a dad  _ was _ , for those years. He tucked me into bed at night. He wasn’t evil. He isn’t a monster. _

_ Maybe I’m worried that I’m getting caught in a loop again. I’ve been trying to push it away—I know, I know, you’re not supposed to bottle it up. This isn’t that. It’s just that I can feel the thoughts pushing on the back of my mind. And as soon as I acknowledge it, I realize how heavy the pushing is. How many thoughts there really must be. So I’m trying to put up a barricade, or something.  _

_ This is important. He’s not a monster. He says questionable things, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a bad person.  _

_ We used to go hiking a lot. It didn’t help that I was a little kid and that I was afraid of heights. He’d always want to go up the hill, keep hiking upwards, but when he’d turn around, I was preoccupied. Stuck in one spot, looking at something on the ground. A caterpillar. A leaf. I don’t remember, I was little. And one day, he got me up the trail. Finally, he was able to coax me up the higher parts, the parts that are fenced off because, without guardrails, they’re cliffs. _

_ I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Cried and screamed. ‘Even if you fall, I’ll catch you,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll catch you’. I hadn’t really heard him, not in that moment. The ground had been too far away, even if I was nowhere near the guardrails. _

_ It felt ironic that I remembered that when I did, and that’s why I’m writing it. I mentioned before that all of the good stuff comes after things get worse, and that’s the Truth: it gets worse, sometimes. Especially with the very real fact looming over me, the fact that I _ did f _ all, and nobody was there to catch me. No one at all. _

\--

There’s a weirdly satisfying thing about closing a door behind you. Like finishing a book, turning the last page and then pressing the covers back together, or powering off a laptop and shutting the lid when you’re done with it. Wednesday evening brings an end to the rain that started yesterday—the sun finally peeking through the clouds, the air humid and misty and heavy—but not an end to the heat wave. Thank god the house has air conditioning.

In my room, all of the nervous energy that I accumulate during school usually melts away. The west-facing window, spilling golden light all across the floor. The glow stars that mom put up when I was younger. It all feels enclosed and safe. But for some reason, my chest is still tied up in knots. 

I want to collapse on the bed. I want to sleep, even though I’m not  _ tired.  _ My mind feels tired. But I have Pre-Calc homework to finish, and I need to read more of Watership Down because the first project was just assigned and we have to finish the first section before we can start.

The project. I can barely even acknowledge that. What’s happening this Saturday. It doesn’t feel real, really, and I’m starting to regret it. That feeling of nerves, the anxiety that’s high up in your chest, just below your lungs. Your heart doesn’t beat faster, but it feels more frantic anyway. I shouldn’t’ve agreed to do the project with him, but I couldn’t say no. Especially after he returned my journal—which I have decided will never leave the house again—and sat with me at lunch and said those nice things about my drawing.

I wish saying no was easy, I really, really do, but you have to understand that it’s harder than it sounds. I know that some people can just stand up against whatever they don’t want, step right into the spotlight and let their shadows collect behind them. But whenever I’m placed in a situation where saying no would even be necessary, the social cues are always murky. The spotlight is never how I expect it to be. It’s blinding, hot. I can feel subtext looming in the background, but the glare blocks it out and I realize that I’m defenseless. I can’t deal with the fact that these words have  _ weight.  _

If I could say no, I think I might be a very different person.

In English class, Connor who’d signed my cast and returned my journal and sat with me at lunch had come up to me and asked if we could be partners for the project. And maybe a little part of me had wanted to say yes, but the majority of my mind had just realized what it meant—the millions of choices to make in multiple conversations, how 93 per-cent of communication is really body-language, and how there are so many ways to screw it up—

I’m sorry. Maybe you can see now how confusing the spiral really is. Even if I wanted to, saying yes just felt like throwing away the key to my own chains. And yet I had anyway.

When it happened, he’d nodded, and I’d looked down at the pale pink rubric and tried to focus on the words:  _ Summarize the two settings discussed so far in Watership Down, and then, in a well-written essay, analyze three similarities, differences, and two continuities. Then illustrate the settings.  _ And then I’d looked back at Connor, who was sitting on his heels next to my desk. He said, “I haven’t read anything since chapter five.”

I’d tried not to let my disappointment show. “Oh.” I understood fine. Partner projects were always like this, anyway; I did most of the work. Maybe I’d expected that he’d be a little different from the way he’d acted at the lunch table. He seemed to really like art. The way he talked sounded like he actually thought through what he said before he said it. I thought he’d actually  _ care...  _ I don’t know. But that was okay, I guess. If I did the whole project, at least it’d get a good grade. I leaned down to my backpack and took out my copy of the book, bookmarked a bit of a ways through, and Connor took a breath in through his teeth.

“But I can look it up online. The summaries, I mean—I didn’t want you to have to…” He paused, shook his head a little. “I’m just trying to say that I hate it when people use partner projects as an excuse to make someone else do all the work. So I don’t want— I’m not going to do that.”

Huh. “Do you want a chair… or something?” 

“Oh. Yeah, probably.” He looked around for a chair and found one across the room, dragging it over and setting it so that we shared a common desk space. Setting his paper down across from mine, he cocked his head. “So, are you busy at all outside of school?”

“What?” I’d heard myself say, and then, realizing the question with more clarity, I’d scratched the side of my face, looked away. “Oh, uh, yeah. I mean yeah, I’m not busy, not... not yeah I _ am _ busy.”

“We can work on it outside of school? It can be at my house. My sister has, like, tons and tons of art supplies.”

I’d bitten down on the inside of my cheek, refusing to look at him. I didn’t necessarily want to go to the Murphy’s house. What if he offered me drugs? Like how he’d tried to offer me the cigarette at lunch? The window to respond was closing, and I'd squeezed my eyes shut. “Okay.” He nodded and I searched around in my backpack again, this time for the pencil that I’d had the class period before, nervous. The energy was starting to build. It had been that way all day, because it was pouring when I woke up in the morning and I’d had to take the bus, and it had been loud and hot and crowded. The anxiety is a buzz in my ears, and nothing would get rid of it; I’m sick of trying to take deep breaths when the air I’m breathing feels too thin. 

I couldn’t find the pencil. I took out a blue pen instead. “Can we do it Saturday, or something? I would need to ask my mom.”

“Saturday’s good. My mom and dad will be gone anyway, because of some golf thing, but Zoe’ll be home…” He trailed off, and I tried not to wince. Now, to make things even worse, Zoe Murphy is going to be in the house somewhere, who has never noticed me except for the day before and who I’ve kind of had a small… crush on. For a while. It’s painful to even think about because a relationship is something that I would probably fail spectacularly at. And Zoe is… so bright. And I’m so dim. 

“Okay. Yeah.” I underlined the word with the graphite tip, trying to redirect my focus. “Okay, so. Settings. You’re on chapter five, so you already know one, right?”

“The… home warren. I don’t know the name of it. Wherever they start out, when the fields are all bloody…”

“Yeah, the Sandleford Warren. But the fields aren’t actually bloody, it’s just the sun setting. Fiver’s having a vision, and…”

“No, I know that. I was just-- referring to it-- I’m not stupid, God.”

The thought flashed through my mind that I’d just corrected him. That I’d offended him. What if everything between us—that small scrap of the possibility of being friends—was ruined? The moment had passed, slow, and Connor and I had both looked at each other in a blank look of surprise. The apology rushed out of my mouth before I could even think if it was necessary. “I’m… wow, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to just  _ correct  _ you like that. I hate being corrected, it’s so rude.”

“No, no, no, no, it’s fine, I don’t care.” His words were hurried, his face caught in a grimace. “I probably would’ve missed a question about that on the test, or something.  _ Fuck _ , don’t apologize. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I thought you thought I was--”

It got quiet again, and I bit at the edge of my thumbnail, feeling unsure. “Really, it’s fine. It’s fine. You don’t— don’t worry about it.”

In my room, I set down my bag by the window and open the curtains, trying to banish the tension in my chest with the sunshine. It’s fine. It’s just a project. It’ll just be a one time thing. Everything is going to be fine. 

But there is so much that I won’t have control over. So much that could go wrong. So many ways to spiral. To loop. I sit down under the window and take out Watership Down, hoping that I can escape from it all for just a few minutes.

\--

On Saturday morning, I follow Connor’s directions and am led to a truly massive house. 

I check twice to make sure that the address is correct, but there it is: It’s a dark blue, two story house. A sleek black car is parked in the driveway and next to it, a pale yellow VW Bug. The door is cherry red with a bell-shaped knocker, and little flower pots lead their way up to the porch. Wind chimes ring in dissonant harmonies as I take in the view. Take in the fact of where I am right now. 

It’s distinctly not threatening, and definitely not a  _ murder scene waiting to happen,  _ like Jared had texted to me, but I wasn’t really expecting that anyway. Getting to know Connor, he seems nothing like a murderer, or a school-shooter. Threatening at times, yes, but it’s far behind his eyes. It’s not at the forefront. It’s angry, but it’s not the color red. Katherine told me once that emotions are like colors—meaning that they can be primary and secondary. Anger isn’t a primary emotion. It’s only caused by other things. I can realize that it isn’t all that he is. How could someone  _ not  _ see that? 

At the door, I lift up the golden knocker, and bring it down softly once or twice. I wait a minute or two, and it’s obvious that they didn’t hear me, and so I look around in vain until I see a tiny button of a doorbell that I push, hearing it chime from the inside.

For a moment, I realize that I’m absolutely terrified. What if Zoe opens the door? I’m wearing a different shirt than usual, a dark green t-shirt. I think my mom got it at Walmart… what if she can tell…? They’re obviously wealthy, and now, I realize that they probably can tell that we are very obviously  _ not. _

_ What if this is the wrong house? _

My mouth is sore from me biting at it but I can’t stop pressing on the side of my cheek with my tongue. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone, scroll through Connor’s texts with me. On Wednesday, after school, the result of much overthinking and lots of horrific advice from Jared (Including wonderful tips he’d texted me, like: m _ ake sure that if u say ‘hey’, use only one y. If u text ‘heyy’ it’s gonna sound like ur high, and ‘heyyy’ makes u look like you’re thirsty af)  _ was me finally texting him,  _ Hi, it’s Evam ( _ At this point,  _ ‘hey’  _ was just way too risky _. _ ), and then panicking at the fact that my autocorrect didn’t work and sending  _ *Evan.  _

He’d said,  _ Hey!  _ And thus we’d conversed, I’d gotten his address, and it didn’t seem too hard after all.

Jared, who for some reason continued to be M-I-A at lunch despite still going to school, had stopped sitting with me, and so I’d sat with Connor for the rest of the week. Yesterday, we’d even walked home together, which was yes, nerve-wracking, but actually kind of nice because, unlike Jared, Connor didn’t really care what I talked about. He never said anything like  _ that’s kind of dumb,  _ or,  _ you’re such a fucking sad-sack.  _ So, that’s definitely new.

I check the house number, and, sure enough, they match.

A moment passes, and then the door opens.

It’s Connor-- he’s in a white t-shirt and sweatpants. I look down at myself—the t-shirt, the nicest pair of jeans I own, the off-brand tennis shoes—and hope that I don’t look overdressed. “Hey, Evan,” he says, opening the door wider.

“Hi.” I step in cautiously, and, realizing that Connor’s in his socks— dark blue ones, with black and white stripes across the top— I lean down to untie my shoes. Connor closes the door behind me, and steps a little further into the living room to open up the windows. 

The blinds are shut, but it’s still obvious that the house is really nice. We’re in a huge foyer, with a kitchen on one side, a dining room on the other, and, past the staircase leading to a second floor, a high-ceilinged living room with wine-red couches. The walls are some off-white color by some off-white name like eggshell or ivory or linen, but when the light comes in through the windows, it opens the whole space up.

“Okay, so, I read the summaries. I didn’t realize how fuckin’ crazy this book is!” He confesses, tugging at the blinds. “Like, those rabbits, the ones that they meet before they settle down at Watership Down? They’re like, a  _ cult.  _ I kind of thought the rabbit thing was for kids, but… holy  _ shit. _ ” __

“Yeah,” I say, distracted. The shoe won’t come off. The laces are stuck in a helpless double knot, and I glance up at Connor, who’s turned away, and pray to anything that will listen that he won’t see me struggling to _ untie my shoes. _

“I mean, ignoring the deaths of the rabbits caught in traps? Pretending that they never even existed?” He continues with vigor, opening the windows one at a time. “That’s fucking dark, man.”

I give a feeble yank to no avail. I can feel sweat breaking out across the back of my neck from the effort. “You know, some say it’s an allegory for communism. The whole book,” I say, and my voice comes out a little strained as I try to pick the knot out with my nonexistent fingernails. I silently curse myself for biting them so much. “But Richard Adams’ daughters said that it’s just a book about rabbits.”

“Intense, for a book about rabbits,” he agrees, and, having finished with the windows, turns. I shrink into the wall as he takes in my situation. “You good?”

“Uh, yeah.” I swallow, trying not to make eye contact. “The knot won’t come out.”

“Here, I got it. I’m really good with knots. And I have nails.” I see his sock feet walk over to me across the carpet and kneel down. I try to pull away as far as the wall will allow. His fingers are painted black, chipped beyond repair, but from this close, I can see that the nail polish isn’t opaque. It’s slightly holographic in the light, shimmery, but still dark. A huge piece chips off of his ring finger as he picks at the knot, eyebrows furrowed, swearing as he tugs to no avail. “Jesus Christ. Why do you double knot your shoes?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I used to trip all the time in elementary school when they’d come undone, so my mom started double knotting them. I guess I learned to do it that way.” He tries again, settling down cross-legged as he works at the fraying shoelaces. “They don’t usually get caught like this. Sorry.”

“It’s no big deal.” A moment passes, and then he says, “Got it.” He pulls the shoelace free and the knot comes undone in a fluid motion, so seamlessly released from it’s tangle that it’s hard to believe it was ever caught in the first place. I take the shoe off, and then pull at the lace on the other, silently begging for it to come out easily. By some miracle, it does, and I let out the longest breath I’ve ever exhaled.

“I like your socks,” Connor adds, standing and walking out of view and into the kitchen, and I look at them. I hadn’t even thought about putting them on: they’re soft, a little pilled up on the soles. A striped color-block of dark blues, greens, and teals. 

“Thanks,” I respond, trying to stand up, losing my balance, and catching myself on the wall. I follow him into the kitchen, where he’s taken out a white glass bowl and is pouring Froot Loops into it. 

“Okay, so all of Zoe’s art supplies are in the craft room. We can use paint, scrapbook paper, whatever.” He closes up the box half-heartedly and tosses it into the pantry. Taking up the bowl, he leads me into a side room, painted a pale cream color. There’s a sewing machine in the corner, what seems like hundreds of bolts of fabric.

“It’s nice that Zoe’s letting us use her stuff,” I say as I crouch down next to him under a cupboard, taking out a book of patterned paper, a few paint pens.

He laughs, tossing a piece of pastel-colored cereal into his mouth. “Nah, she’s not  _ letting  _ us use this. She’d probably kill me if she knew we were, actually.” Oblivious to my wide-eyed expression, he takes a poster board and puts it under his arm, then offering me the bowl. “Want some?”

“Sure.” I take a small handful of the slightly-sticky cereal and put a few in my mouth, letting the sweetness sit on my tongue. I help Connor gather paintbrushes and Gloss Mod-Podge. “Aren’t we going to get caught?”

He shrugs, standing up and nearly tipping over under everything in his arms. “I don’t think she’s home right now, anyway. But if she does come home, and if she sees all of this,” he gestures to everything nearly dropping a bottle of black acrylic paint, “I have a plan.”

My eyebrows quirk in a half-laugh, and I stand up, shutting the cabinet behind me. “Plan?” I find myself again led by him through the cavernous house, this time up the stairs, which are surprisingly narrow and seem treacherous with our hands occupied.

“Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

On the second story, there’s a small hallway that curves around a corner to the left. Beyond that are a couple doors, one right across from the other. Connor kicks in the one to the right, which was previously ajar, and deposits everything onto the messy floor.

I hesitate a little before going inside. It seems so… personal. And intimate. The posters on the wall, the bed where he sleeps. The clothes hanging in the closet. I’ve been friends with Jared since elementary school, and I haven’t even seen his bedroom— we usually just play video games or something in the living room or the basement. 

I step inside tentatively, and sit cross-legged across from Connor, facing the door, the pile of supplies between us. It feels weird leaning back against the side of his bed, so I try to sit up straight, but my shoulders start aching almost immediately. 

“So what are we planning on doing?” He leans back on his forearms, and picks up the poster board. “You’re really great at drawing landscapes, so do you want to do the illustrations?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“I just figured you’d want me to do the writing section.”

He shrugs. “Well I’m shit at drawing actual, like, places, and I think I understand the settings pretty well.” He shifts so that he’s laying on his side, pulling a blank sheet of lined paper from under a desk. “Besides, I mean, I’m not most people. I bet most people are trying to take advantage of you. Make you do all the work.”

Blinking, I shake my head. “You’re… you’re right. I knew that, though. I usually just let them.”

“Why?” He sounds bewildered, though he isn’t making eye contact with me, and starts to title the paper with black pen. 

“I don’t know. It’s so stupid. I just didn’t know how to, like, politely decline. I thought it’d sound rude or something.” I take a pencil from the messy pile and start sketching. “Thanks for letting me draw.”

“‘Course. Do you want to listen to music or something?” 

“Sure. Whatever’s good.”

He makes a laborious stretch from where he’s sitting to grab his phone from where it’s charging on a nightstand, and taps on it for a minute before a song starts playing—nothing intense. A steady drum beat, warm chords. It’s nice. He keeps it turned down relatively low, so that we can still speak, but I still can catch a few words every so often:  _ Shakedown, nineteen-seven-nine… you and I should meet... _

A few minutes pass- I’ve divided the poster board in half to draw the two rabbit warrens, and have started sketching the foreground on the first--a green hill dotted with primroses, and a menacing sign staked into the ground—when Connor asks, “Okay. Question. Give me your top three favorite books.”

Looking up, he’s leaning against the opposite wall next to the door, the notebook paper on his lap with a hardcover book under it to write on and the bowl of Froot Loops half-empty and sitting in the middle ground between us. Caught off guard, I stop drawing for a minute, staring at the blank whiteness of the board. “Top three?”

“Yeah, only the best.”

“I can’t choose. I like lots of books.” I look up to see him roll his eyes playfully, and when he makes eye contact with me, I hurriedly look back down at my work. 

“Alright then, just three  _ of  _ your favorites. They don’t have to be in order.”

“Okay, uh. Let me think for a minute.” I suddenly cannot think of a single book. It’s as if my brain has decided that the memories of book titles are no longer useful, and has thrown them out. Nothing. I try to focus on drawing rabbits.

“Uh…” I’m about to give up and say I don’t know when a title pops into my head from last year. I silently rejoice at my memory’s reprieve, and take a deep breath. “This might be dumb, because I know we all had to read it last year, but I really liked To Kill a Mockingbird.” I don’t look up, because I don’t know what Connor thinks of it, but he makes a  _ huh  _ sound that sounds slightly like approval.

“Okay, yeah, that was pretty good. I think it was the only one I actually read last year.”

“It’s interesting how, like, the mockingbird metaphor? That can be used for almost anyone in the book.”

“I always thought it was the guy— y’know, the one who was unfairly put on trial…”

“Well, it is. But it can be applied to any of them… like Boo Radley.”

He looks thoughtfully at the ceiling for a minute before replying, “Yeah, actually. Because everyone thinks he’s a bad person, but he really was, just, reclusive. Looking out for others… What was the quote? All mockingbirds do is sing for us… so to kill a mockingbird is a sin… or something? That’s what they did. The town, I mean.” He reaches to the ground near him and picks up a previously invisible rubber band, pulling his hair into a bun. “Man. I bombed that essay though. It was supposed to be an argument and what I wrote apparently was informative.”

I rub my shoulder a little. “ _ ‘They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’” _

Connor looks up, surprised. “Oh, shit, you remember that? That’s awesome.”

He’s turned his gaze from the distance to me, and I catch myself almost shrinking back. I dig my nails into the carpet to keep from biting my lip or something. “Yeah. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I can use them in essays, so—”

There’s a voice from the hallway, and we both look up. “Hey, fuckface, did you steal my nail polish again?”

And then Zoe Murphy is in the doorway… in a sports bra. It’s nothing revealing, but as soon as she sees me sitting there her eyes go wide and she gives a yelp of surprise, darting back into the hallway. “What the fuck, Connor! You didn’t tell me we had people over!”

“Did you  _ not  _ hear the doorbell ring?”

“Fuck you!”

I feel almost frozen in embarrassment, like I’ve just invaded her privacy. I grit my teeth, look away. A pale arm reaches from the doorframe and grabs a black pile of fabric that’s been discarded on the floor, disappearing back into the hallway. I take a deep breath and try not to focus on the fact that I can feel my face exuding heat. 

Connor looks at me urgently and mouths something I don’t understand, and then calls out, “Besides, it’s not people. It’s Evan.” Zoe creeps into the room in a black t-shirt with  _ INTERPOLANTICS  _ in white and red print across the front. The shirt’s a little too long on her; it’s hard to tell, except for the fact that the t-shirt sleeves come down to her forearms. But maybe it’s just supposed to fit like that, because it doesn’t look bad on her. 

I look down at the floor.

“You still could’ve… never mind. I just got back from a run and it was hot, and… like, I don’t know. I didn't realize you were so…” she gestures at the pile of art supplies. “...busy. Hey, are those my art supplies?” Connor flashes a grimace and at me as if we’re partners in crime, and I just shoot him a look like,  _ What do you want  _ me  _ to do? _ “Connor, what the hell!”

“We need them for a school project!” He protests. “And you were out! How could I have asked you?”

“I don’t know, maybe using the magical cellular device on the ground right there?”

He rolls his eyes, letting out a sound of pure disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me, Zoe? It’s paint and paper.”

“Damn right it is. It’s my fucking paint and paper.” I think they both realize that their volume has risen, because they look at me almost simultaneously. “Sorry, Evan,” Zoe sighs and sits down cross-legged between Connor and I. She looks at Connor tiredly and asks, “What did I even come in here for again?”

When he doesn’t respond, I quietly offer, “Nail polish,” and she points a finger gun at me and nods solemnly. 

“Yep,” she breathes out a long, long breath, taking a small handful of Froot Loops from the bowl and dropping them into her mouth. “I couldn’t find it. The black one I lent you, with--”

“I have, like a million black ones, Zoe.”

“Please don’t be shitty,” she says, chewing.

“I don’t have it. Look again.”

“You don’t even know which one it is! You didn’t let me--”

“Look. Again.”

“I--,”

“Go. We’re working.”

She’s silent for a moment, and her face gets really, really red. It starts at her neck and grows upwards, and her eyes glint angrily. I can tell she’s holding back. I can see the words behind her lips. “Whatever,” she growls. She stands up and heads toward the door. “I’m keeping your shirt.”

“ _ Goodbye!” _

She slams the door, tramps off, and I hear a second door slam from across the hall.

Connor and I look at each other for a long time. He has a very conflicted expression on his face, and he keeps opening his mouth like he’s going to say something, but doesn’t. I can feel my heart pounding, not fast, just hard. Like I’m hyper aware of it. 

He finally settles on, “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no, really, it’s fine.” I say, probably too fast. 

“We argue all the time. It’s kind of instinctual. Sorry you had to get caught up in it.”

I swallow. “No, no, no, really. It’s fine, I mean, I don’t have siblings-- well, I have step siblings, but I don’t know them-- at least not  _ really,  _ but-- I’m just trying to say that it’s probably, like, normal, I just wouldn’t know-- don’t worry about it.” I was going to ask  _ that was your plan?  _ but it just feels too quiet and awkward now. 

He nods, picking at the nail polish on his thumbnail. “Okay. But… if you ever come over again, like, it won’t happen again.”

“I, uh… okay.” I notice a pain in my hand and look down to see that I’ve been tearing at a hangnail on my thumb. I shove my hand under my knee and lean back down over the poster board.

Connor clears his throat. “You didn’t tell me about the other two books.”

“What…? Oh, oh yeah.”

The light wanes, and we talk. Eventually, we finish the Froot Loops and the comparisons of the settings and the illustrations, with me checking his grammar and him helping me come up with ways to differentiate the characters ( _ They all look like rabbits to me,  _ I’d said, and he’d just given me a  _ please  _ look and added markings and scars and soon I could tell who was the protagonist and who was the cult-leader) and soon enough, I’m following Connor back down the stairs, past the red-velvet couches and the expensive looking paintings on the walls. Soon, I’m putting my shoes back on and double knotting them again by accident. I’m standing in the doorway, looking out at the late six-o-clock sunshine.

We’ve said our goodbyes, and I’m walking down the porch in a kind of melancholy-but-content mood, when Connor suddenly calls out, “Hey. Do you need a ride?”

I turn around. He’s got his hands in the pockets of the sweatpants, and is leaning against the door-frame, smiling a little. He looks so… I don’t know.  _ Cool?  _ Like even the laziness of his leaning is planned out. If I tried to do that, I’d probably lose my balance and fall on my face. “You don’t need to,” I say, because it’s really only six or seven blocks, and not that long of a walk, but then Connor’s pulling on a pair of slip-ons and is walking out of the door.

“I know that. But I want to.” 

I wrap my arms around myself. Connor has already walked past me, and is unlocking the door to the black car I saw in the driveway earlier. He turns suddenly, and says, “You don’t mind, right? I wasn’t trying to, like, demand you to get into my car.”

“No, I don’t mind.”

He smiles, and motions for me to climb into the other side. 

His car is really nice. Like, I’m worried about putting my feet down on the floor levels of nice. But Connor just kind of sprawls into the seat like he’s super comfortable being there, so I try a little to loosen up.

“Are you okay?” He asks, when we’re pulling out of the driveway.

“Yeah, of course,” I assure. I try to sound sincere, but then he’s reaching across the console and pulling my seat belt on. “Oh. Yeah.”

He laughs. “Relax. It’s my mom’s car, but that doesn’t mean you have to be worried about messing it up or something. Your shoes are clean and you don’t have an urge to punch the roof, so I think you’ll be fine.” He grins at me, and the sunset through the trees paints his hair in what I imagine to be copper-colored gouache. I wish I had my sketchbook. “Do you care if I play music?” He says.

“You don’t have to ask.”

“Pass me the cord?”

I pick it up from the floor and he plugs in his phone at a stop sign, turning up the volume a little to a bass-pounding, tambourine hitting, piano-led beat. A woman with a smoky, molasses voice.

“Thanks for coming over today. I haven’t really had someone over in forever.”

“Me neither. Like, I haven’t actually hung out with someone in a while. So, thanks too.”

He smiles, and I take the advantage of him looking at the road to look at him. His profile is sharp, the bridge of his nose linear and decided, though the tip is turnt up just the tiniest bit. His cheekbones are high, framing his whole face. I  _ really, really  _ wish I had my sketchbook. I try to commit the lines to memory.

“About Tuesday,” he leads on. “It requires a presentation aspect. The project. I can do it, if you want.”

“Really? You don’t have to--”

“I know I don’t have to Evan. It’s fine.” He insists, and turns to see me looking directly at him. I try to veil my surprise and look out of the front window, worrying at the inside of my cheek.

“That’s really nice of you. Thanks.”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m fine with presentations, though I did get suspended in the tenth grade for a project on Huckleberry Finn…” He notices my surprised expression and barks a little laugh. “I’ll just read what I wrote today.”

“Thanks. Like, really,  _ thanks.  _ Because when I try to do-- really  _ anything  _ involving words in front of people I get words mixed up, and--”

“Call yourself Evam?”

It’s quiet for a second, and then, despite myself, I’m laughing. “Yes, actually.” He’s laughing too. I look over again. The sun is setting right into the crook of his eyebrow and nose. 

I give him directions, and after a few more minutes of jazzy music and bits of conversation, he pulls up to my house. My mom isn’t home; I’m not surprised. He unlocks the door, but I wait a minute before climbing out. 

“Connor?” I ask, because we’re in the shadow of the house, and the cabin lights are off, and it’s easier to say things in the dark.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” I’ve already said  _ thanks  _ a million times, but this time is different. It’s  _ thank you  _ on a different level. It’s almost like…  _ thank you for today. Thank you for today not being another Saturday alone. _

“Yeah.” He affirms, and I think he’s looking at me in the dark. I think he understands.

I open the car door and climb out into the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you guys feel about me posting every few days or so? I was going to do a week, but, eh, I've got lots of time on my hands. Subscribe to the story if you'd like to be notified with every chapter I post, and, if this story strikes your fancy, leave a comment! Tell me what you liked, what you found interesting, your favorite song, lol, I don't care—They honestly make my day.  
> Oh! And the song mentioned is '1979' by The Smashing Pumpkins.


	4. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor finishes the milk, and Zoe pretends not to notice. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for implied self harm

It’s three-forty-seven in the morning, and I can’t sleep. I texted Evan, but I already know that he probably  _ is  _ asleep, so I’m not surprised when I don’t get a response. 

You’d be surprised at how much thinking is involved in falling asleep. I honestly envy people who can lay down and be out like a light in five minutes. Even when I don’t go to bed at one in the morning, sometimes I don’t actually drift off until three or four. I don’t know why. I can’t clear my head, and the thoughts aren’t even complete ones. It’s like someone flipping through channels as fast as possible on a television and only catching clips and phrases. It’s like radio static. 

I throw my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the carpet. It’s almost completely dark in my room, except for the fact that my blinds aren’t pulled, so there’s a faint mixture of streetlight and starlight filtering in through the window to see by. The sleeping problems have always been there, but they’ve been especially bad for the past few weeks. Like I’m tired throughout the day, but when I finally lay down, my mind starts going on overdrive.

What I really want is a distraction from all the stupid shit in my head. I want to smoke a cigarette, but then I’d need to smoke out of the window, and my parents aren’t home yet, so I’d risk them seeing me. I think briefly about the razor, in the box in the bathroom cabinet. And then I keep thinking about it, but I allow my feet to take me down the stairs instead.

The kitchen lights up in the glow of the refrigerator, and I take out the carton of two-percent milk and pour the remainder of the contents into a tall glass. I put the empty carton back in, close the fridge, and sit down on the tile floor. There aren’t any windows in the kitchen. The only illumination is the refrigerator door, one of those ones that has a lever you can press on for water or ice.

I always feel kind of like there are dead-spaces where time doesn’t flow like it usually does: like, whenever we have to drive through a tunnel on the way into the city, the hallway of a hospital, right before the sun rises. The kitchen floor at three-fifty-one in the morning. I press my bare feet against the cold linoleum and drink the glass of milk quietly, squaring my shoulders and back against the silver fridge. I think about how, technically, today is now tomorrow, but that’s not possible because tomorrow is tomorrow. That, even though it feels like late Saturday, it’s Sunday morning.

I don’t think about the fact that Evan Hansen was in this room earlier. How he stood in his teal and green socks and helped me steal Zoe’s art supplies next door. How he’d sat, at first pensive and strained, and then relaxed finally against the side of my bed, head bent over the poster board, hand working with the pencil in a syncopated rhythm as he drew. I try not to think about him seeing Zoe. I try not to think about Zoe in general, really.

He’d seemed so… caught by her. As just seeing her had caused a million alarms to go off in his head. I think he likes her. I kind of hope he doesn’t.

The problem with thinking at all is that it’s circular. You can go down an infinite number of rabbit holes, follow threads of thought into places where the light is a little brighter, the air a little easier to breathe, but you’ll always end up back where you were. Evan, the socks, the paper, the drawing. To Kill a Mockingbird. Zoe. The razor in the box in the bathroom cabinet.

I finish the milk, put the glass in the sink and go back upstairs. 

\--

Monday mornings might be worse than Tuesdays. The fact that it’s an  _ A- _ Week doesn’t help this fact.

Zoe offers to drive me to school, but I decline. I think that the heat wave is starting to finally fade because it’s still warm out but the humidity is surprisingly less— for once, the hoodie I’m wearing isn’t impractical. On the sides of the roads, there aren’t any dead leaves, though. Leave it to global warming to postpone the beginning of autumn until October.

I put my earbuds in my ears (I actually took the time to untangle them yesterday, as if they were shoelaces, picking the knots out and pulling the loops until they came undone) but don’t actually play any music. I’m not sure if I should walk quickly or slowly. I know that Evan walks home after school, but I’m not sure if he takes the bus in the mornings or not. I haven’t ever caught him this early.

My shoes hit the ground, and each step feels like an effort. Because it’s not raining, I’m actually able to wear the slip-ons my mom paid way too much for for my seventeenth birthday earlier this year (I’ve always been in the older half of my class. Zoe’s sixteen, a year younger than me, but the reason she’s on the upper half of her class is because our parents held her back a year because she’d literally just turned five at the beginning of kindergarten. I’m this way because I was held back in the sixth grade). They’re black and blue checkerboard. They’re kind of the only nice shoes I have, but because I have (fucking) tennis today, I still have to change later into the ill-fitting sneakers we got at the beginning of the school year.

I walk along. I keep an eye on the side street that Evan always goes down when we walk home together. When I pass it, and he isn’t there, I blow out a breath and bite at my thumbnail, chipping the nail polish off with my teeth. 

It’s hot inside the school—I assume they haven’t fixed the air conditioning yet—and I have Chemistry first period. The room is in upstairs C-hall, and perpetually smells like someone accidentally left the gas on during a lab. I’m always aware that there’s a possibility the room could combust, which is very helpful, especially when I’m trying to focus on a test.

At 8:30, when the bell rings, I’m in my chair for once. The rest of the class has filed in at some point, and the teacher, Mr. Caraway, comes in, with his flannel and huge beard. I always wonder about that. He preaches about lab safety, and yet, nine times out of ten, he’s leaning over a flame with the facial hair of a Portland-born hipster.

He says good morning to the class, starts talking about plans for the week. He points out stuff on a calendar and half of the class jots things down into planners. I put my cheek down on the desk and write from there, trying to focus. The fluorescents are buzzing above us.

And… It’s weird. Before I know it, the bell is ringing again. I look up in alarm and rub my eyes. There are two papers on my table. Notes. They’re empty. I take in a rushed breath and sit up straight, bolting out of the chair. The lights of the classroom are still a little fuzzy. As everyone leaves the classroom, I try not to notice Mr. Caraway, who’s noticing me. I pack up my bag, but, before I can leave, he’s speaking to me.

“Connor. A word?”

I resist the urge to grit my teeth. Mr. Caraway waits until the classroom is empty before he speaks.

“Listen, Connor. You’re a bright kid. But what do you expect me to do if you sleep in my class?”

“I don’t know,” I glower. “Fail me? More?”

He lets out a sigh and adjusts his glasses. “I’m sure you’ve heard the ‘Junior year is important’ speech a million times already, so I’ll spare you that. I’m just trying to say that if you don’t pass this class at the end of the year, you won’t be able to move on to Senior year. You could graduate late.”

Before I have a chance to say anything, he continues on. “I know high school is tough. And if something’s going on at home that’s causing you not to do your work, you can tell me. This is a safe space.”

“There’s nothing. Going on.”

“I see.” He rolls up the sleeves of his flannel and leans back in his chair. “You’re just… lacking motivation. Don’t you realize that your future is in your hands?”

It’s hard to respond to this. Sometimes I don’t even realize the fact that time goes on. That in a couple of months, I’ll be sitting in a testing room with the SAT in front of me and my mind somewhere far away. I can barely imagine myself as a Senior. I can’t even  _ fathom  _ myself in college. I kind of had gotten used to the idea that I wouldn’t get that far, and though the moment’s passed, the thought’s stuck to me. Default. “I… I know.”

“Then I really need to see you starting to make an effort. I know you understand the material. The first week of school, you actually did your notes, and you passed that unit’s test with a high A.” He clears his throat, and I try not to shrink. There’s a paper straw wrapper in my pocket and I crumple it up between my thumb and forefinger. “Connor, I’m willing to make all resources available to you. You can come in after school if you need a working environment, I’ll let you check out the textbooks… I just… I really need you to start buckling down, or I’ll have no choice but to contact your parents.”

_ Shit.  _ “I mean, they already know. I’m taking Sophomore classes.”

“Lots of Juniors take Chemistry, Connor.”

“Fine,” I submit, throwing my hands up. “I’ll do the work. I’m sorry I fell asleep.”

Mr. Caraway’s forehead creases. “I hope it’s not too much to ask, but I want you to come in for study hall this week. I have a student in Advanced Chemistry who can help you out.”

“I—,” I start, trying to object, but he silences me with a look.

“I think this will really help you. I’m trying to be a good teacher. Think, if I would’ve just let this slide. Where would you be in the future?”

“Probably fine. Whatever. I’ll come.” I grit out. “Can I go now?”

He nods, looking disappointed, but not surprised. 

I scowl and leave the classroom, shutting the door behind me. The hallways are nearly empty. 

\--

Caraway’s star student is an overenthusiastic girl in a polka dotted dress. I recognize her from the Research class that Cynthia chose for me: she always is answering questions, responding in her emphatically knowledgeable voice. It takes her about a minute of holding her hand out to realize that I’m not going to shake it.  
“Well, alright, Connor,” she says, smiling. “I’m Alana. I’m actually in Research with you! Mr. Caraway said that you needed help with Chemistry, so, if you have any questions, then shoot.”

“I guess that’s your idea of a joke, huh?”

Her smile falters, but only for a second. I wonder if her cheeks hurt. “What? No. Why would it be a joke?”

“Because people say that I’m going to shoot up a school.”

This gets her. She laughs nervously, but forges on. “Oh! Uh, well you obviously aren’t. I just meant like, you can ask me questions.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay? So, do you have any?”

“Yes, actually.”

She almost says  _ shoot,  _ again. I can see her press her lips down on the word, and instead, she just smothers another bout of nervous laughter and nods in my direction.

“How do you make meth?”

“Excuse me?”

I glare, popping the knuckles on my right hand. “I’m interested in making my own. Great for profit, I’ve heard, and a less expensive alternative for your own supply.” When she doesn’t reply, dumbstruck, I ask, “That’s a Chemistry question, right?

“That’s… not funny.”

“Do I sound like I’m joking?”

She makes a strangled noise and glances at Mr. Caraway across the room, who is helping another student. “Do you have any  _ actual  _ questions?”

“No.” I close my eyes for a minute, trying to banish the need to punch a wall. “I’m here because I fell asleep in class.”

“You understand everything?”

“Sure. Whatever, can you just leave me alone? I don’t feel like talking, sorry.”

She’s taken aback, but not deterred. “Listen, Connor, I don’t know you very well, but I have a feeling we’re going to get to know each other a lot better over the school year. The SAT is sooner than you think, and just ignoring your work isn’t going to get you into any good colleges.”

“I don’t care about college. That’s not your problem!”

“It is now,” she informs, straightening her glasses. She flattens her dress, leans forward in her seat as if she’s letting me in on a secret. “Are you familiar with the Noble Eightfold Path?”

“From World History?”

“From Buddhism,” she says, matter-of-fact. “And though I may not be Buddhist, the ideals of the Eightfold Path can lead to a happier and more centered life.”

“And what are those?” I demand, eyes trained at the crack under the door.

“Well, they’re right view, right intention, right speech, right—”

“Please, spare me the list. I just wanted an idea.”

Her nose crinkles and she clears her throat a little. “I had a point. Anyways, one of the parts of the Eightfold Path is right action. You’re supposed to work for the good of others.”

“So I’m your good deed?” I say, incredulous.

“No… but you’re a good place to start?” She concedes. She blows out a breath, then says, “Connor, you seem like a nice person—”

“Do I?”

“—and I just think that I can really help—”

“Use me for your own self-growth.” I wonder how long it’ll take to get her to really blow up on me. She already seems moderately angry. Maybe miffed.

“Just listen. And please stop interrupting, sorry to be blunt. I spend a lot of time focused on schoolwork—”

“Really?”

“ _ Can you please let me speak?!” _ Her eyes go as wide as the lenses of her shiny, round glasses, then she blinks and clears her throat again. “Wow. Sorry for the outburst.”

“You didn’t even shout. It was like, a moderate inside voice.”

“Okay, well, as I was saying… I’m so focused on getting good credits on my college applications that I haven’t focused on being a good person. Being a good socializer.”

“I can tell,” I say, nodding. “Good for you.”

“I’m going to cut to the chase. I can help you not flunk out of high school. You can help me to be a better person by helping you.”

“I thought Mr. Caraway told you about me. To help me with Chemistry.”

She twirls a braid around her finger and makes a small noise. “I may have… asked him if there was anyone I could tutor. Not just in Chemistry.”

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, but helping someone study doesn’t just make you a good person. That’s not how it works.”

Alana pinches the bridge of her nose, just like a seventy year old woman with a migraine. “Okay. Y’know what? I tried.”

I feel like I should be happy that I’ve finally gotten her to shut up. But I don’t. I think about Cynthia, signing me up for classes. Signing me up for therapy. Her conversations with Larry that I really shouldn’t’ve listened to ( _ What do you want me to do? I’m trying my best. He won’t listen. It’s hopeless) _ . I think about Zoe. Zoe with straight A’s, who plays guitar with all of her band friends. Zoe, who caused Evan to come undone because she was wearing fucking athletic wear.

I grit my teeth. “You really think you can get me to pass the SAT?”

She turns, as if she expected this. “It’s good to hear that you’ve come to your senses. We’ll start as soon as possible.”

“ _ Start? _ ”

“Yeah. We can study whenever you’re free. Can I have your phone number?”

I’m disconcerted and astonished. I’ve done everything in this conversation to push her away and get her to leave me alone, and she still wants to help me. Can she ever be dissuaded? “Sure.” I say numbly, and ink it on a slip of notebook paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else's lives super hectic?? Not in the sense of having a bunch of stuff to do, but just being stressed about the things that you do have? If My Shot from Hamilton and FWtSH are my only anchors in this Trying Time™, so be it. Honestly though. Updating this fic is probably my favorite part of the day, so thanks for the positive reactions! ^^


	5. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sandwich is sacrificed for the sanctity of a good studying environment. Evan has a good day, until he doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for a panic attack  
> Alsoo there might be some formatting issues on a phone or a tablet during Evan and Connor's text conversation? If there are any questions on what the actual heck is happening during that convo, I will answer them!

_I know you. I know that you’ve known this has been coming, so prepare yourself._ _Of course, with the precursor of the past paragraph, you might be able to tell what happens. I want to write it down, not to relive it, but to realize that yes, it did happen. It’s real. And what I feel about it is valid._

_ Menacing? Sorry if it reads that way, though the voicemail I received on September the seventeenth felt, in all meanings of the word, like a menace. It really screwed me up, it really did. And it’s taken some time, but I recognize now that, if I hadn’t listened to that voicemail, then none of this would’ve happened. None of this.  _

_ Maybe you’ll see it too. I don’t know. I’m trying to explain, and maybe I’m doing a great job, or maybe I’m just rambling.  _

_ Or maybe I’m just using maybe way too much.  _

_ \-- _

At lunch on the day of the Watership Down presentation, Connor decides that we should move to a new spot.

“Come on,” he insists, gesturing towards the trees and neighborhoods beyond, the bus lot full of yellow school buses.The water tower standing sentinel in the midday sunshine. “It’s too hot out.”

“It’s seventy-eight degrees?” I counter half-heartedly, pulling up the weather app on my phone. I’m wearing a t-shirt, having taken my jacket off and tied it around my waist. The world is still decidedly in the ending throes of summer, though the trees are starting to shed their leaves, just a tiny bit; a few dead ones near the gutters, in the fire lanes, the places where people don’t usually look. 

Connor’s sitting on the table next to me, his ratty tennis shoes on the seat. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I used to eat in one of the upstairs hallways. That’s quiet. And I think they finally fixed the A.C.”

I’m not convinced. I keep thinking about Jared. He still texts me every so often, but he hasn’t shown up at lunch for the past week and a half; I’ve gone beyond wondering if I said something wrong. I can’t figure him out. “What about Jared?” I hesitate saying it, already bracing for the answer.

“He’s been ditching you for a week?” Connor scoffs. His hair’s pulled back against the kind-of-heat. I can’t imagine having hair that long—just brushing where his collarbones are. It must be so hard to wash. “He’s probably not coming back.”

“But…” I trail off. I’m out of arguments.

He hops down to sit next to me, still facing out of the table. “Besides,” he starts. I lean back from where I was hunched over my sketchbook. I’m suddenly very aware that a few pages over are horrible attempts of drawing his profile from that evening in the car; I’ve failed miserably at capturing his likeness, but the shading is okay. I shut the book and tuck it under my arm. “If he’s ignoring you, that’s his problem. I mean, from what you’ve told me and what I've seen, he seems like kind of a dick.”

“He’s not ignoring me. He still texts me sometimes…” Connor raises his eyebrows, and I add quietly, “But, I mean… usually about homework.”

“Alright then. It’s settled!” He climbs out of the seat and picks up his bag, covered in pins and stitched patches— I wonder if he knows how to sew. It doesn’t seem likely. Did his mom do it? Zoe? “We’re moving, right now. Come on, hurry.”

“Wait, Connor—,” I start to protest, but he’s already grabbed my left forearm and is half-pulling me out of the picnic table. I’m suddenly caught up in surprised laughter, and hear that his laughter sounds surprised at  _ my  _ laughter. When he only manages to tug me a few inches, he lets go and starts walking away.

“I’m leaving, Hansen,” he insists. He turns to head into the building, and I lean back far enough to see him upside down.

“You know, you can’t smoke in a hallway.”

He shrugs, shoulders casual. He’s crossed his arms lazily and is leaning against a stone pillar. “I’m trying to quit anyway.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s not like an  _ addiction.  _ I don’t need to go to rehab or anything. _I ain't got the time_ , and all that.”

“Huh.” It’s really no use arguing. He’s giving me this look, this smug smile, as if he already knows that he’s won.

“You know what? Alright,” I exhale.

“I knew that I’d break you.” He walks back over to me, standing by the table as I pack my bag up. When I shake my head, smiling, he gives a pointed look at my cast. “What? Too soon?”

“Shut up,” I say, and then realize what I’ve said and look at him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it— I was just kidding.”

“I know.” He says, prodding me with a foot. “Hurry up.”

“Oh, there you are!” Comes a voice from across the patio. The glass doors have opened, and a girl in a lavender-colored dress is striding toward us. Her strides are neat and purposeful, and for what she lacks in height, she makes up for in impeccable posture. Next to me, Connor’s face has dissolved into a look of dread. The girl— Alana Beck, who’s in my US History class, and who pressured me into giving an English presentation with her Freshman year— sits down primly on the other side of the table, her backpack next to her.

“She’s found us,” Connor mutters to me. “I’m done for.”

“Hi Connor!” She smiles, pretending not to hear him even though it was clearly audible, and then nods at me. “Evan.”

I lift a hand in weak greeting, still a little startled by her sudden entrance.

Connor sits down heavily next to me, blowing out a breath. “Alana. Do we have to do this now?” His leg is pressed up against mine. My eyes are wide as I look at her, and, noting this, I clear my throat and try to settle into a casual expression.

“You okay, Evan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Alana says, but then turns to Connor. “And, yes. We do have to do this now.” She opens her fuchsia backpack and pulls out a huge book and a Tupperware container. “I mean, if you want to pass the SAT.”

From this close up, I can see that there are tiny white bows on her dress. She methodically takes a celery stick from the container and dips it into a little tub of hummus. “Connor, so, for these lessons, you’re going to need this book. You can borrow mine for now, but, seeing as you’re not paying me for this, you’ll have to acquire your own pretty soon.” She slides the red-and-yellow volume across the table. 

“ _ Barron’s: The Leader in Test Preparation,”  _ Connor reads. “Okay, one,  _ paying you?  _ I thought this was a symbiotic thing. You help me, I help you. And two: Alana,  _ acquire?” _

“If you’re referring to mutual symbiosis, then you’d be correct.” She straightens her glasses and bites down on a celery stick. Quiet, I take a sandwich bag out of my backpack and start eating.

“It’s nearly as big as a fucking dictionary,” he breathes, crestfallen.

Alana suddenly turns her attention to me, and I freeze, sandwich in my mouth, startled. “I trust that you’re keeping up with your SAT studies, right, Evan?” Alana says. “I’d love to help you too. Not to mention that you don’t say nearly as many expletives.” She gives Connor a look, who shrugs.

I chew my sandwich, because talking with your mouth full is disgusting, but it’s peanut butter and jelly, and it’s getting stuck to the roof of my mouth, and the whole ordeal is taking way too long. I swallow heavily and choke out, “Oh, uh, yeah. Definitely. I study… a lot. Nearly every night, actually.”

Connor’s giving me an amused look, and I squint at him.

“I’d still be honored to tutor you. I’m going to be a lawyer, you know,” she says formally. “I need to know how to talk to people.”

“Okay. I could use the help.”

“Wonderful!” She says. Connor looks as if he expects her to start clapping her hands. “Oh, and is there any kind of jam in that?” She asks, pointing to the sandwich.

“Jam?” I respond, looking at it. “Just strawberry.”

“I’ll sadly have to ask you to put it away for now,” she states, exhaling a deeply saddened breath. “I’m allergic. Once, when I was in the first grade, Lily R. let me try some of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I broke out in hives. They were  _ everywhere,  _ and, believe me, if I accidentally inhale any berry spores, it won’t be pretty.”

“...Berry spores..?” Connor remarks, and I just put my hands up in surrender and the sandwich away.

Alana bites into another piece of celery, and then says, “Let’s begin. Shall we?” She opens the book, and Connor sinks down on the table with a groan.

\--

During eighth period, the presentation goes surprisingly well. It’d been on the back of my mind all day that it was happening, but sitting down in English had brought it to the forefront. Connor had eyed me from across the room as I scribbled my pencil against the cast and tried not to fidget otherwise. We ended up going some time in the middle. Connor read the page he’d written on Saturday and Mrs. Christie put the drawings on the projector. Maybe it was because all of the eyes were focused on Connor, and the world wasn’t spinning out into tunnel-vision, but everyone in the class just looked bored. They didn’t care at all. I’d taken a deep breath and caught his eye. Tried to let the tension go.

On our way back to our seats, Mrs. Christie had given an overenthusiastic thumbs-up, which must’ve been a good sign, and with sparse reading homework and my Environmental Science notes finished during study hall, I don’t have much to do at home.

I’d settled for lying on the floor, centered in the yellow rectangle of sunlight, and thinking, which usually was not a recreational activity in my case but today felt freer and lighter. It  _ had  _ been a good day. For once, my mind doesn’t feel like a steel trap. The train is slowing down, and I finally have time to admire the artwork spray painted on the side. 

There’s something that feels kiddish about saying this, but I can’t wait to talk to Katherine about it. It’s been months of me showing up to therapy a nervous wreck. I was getting worried that she’d start to think I was unfixable. Not that it’s her job to fix me. She showed me once this illustration of a therapist spinning the patient’s tangled-yarn thoughts into spools of thread. I was starting to think that the knots were too tight.

I close my eyes, sinking into the peacefulness slowly, and then am jolted out of it when a door closes from downstairs. I feel my eyebrows furrow, and I pick myself back up and roll my neck before gently opening my door. 

“Mom?” I call downstairs. She must be home early. I haven’t seen her nearly enough this past week, the last time we’ve had a conversation being Sunday, when I explained to her why a stranger’s name is in giant block letters on my cast.

“Honey?” I hear the response and can’t help but smile a little. “I got off of work early, I’m in the kitchen!”

I turn the knob as I close the door so that it shuts quietly behind me and turn into the hallway to walk down the stairs. As I enter the kitchen and she sees me, she hurriedly puts her purse down on the counter top and walks over to me, squeezing me with a force that’s way beyond what you’d think for her height. 

“How was your day?” She says over my shoulder, still hugging me. It really feels like I haven’t seen her in forever. I wish I could sink into the feeling.

“It was good. It was actually good,” I say, and she holds me at arm’s length.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” She nods, smiling, and walks back over to the counter. “I was thinking something nice for dinner? I could make pasta?”

“That sounds amazing.” I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t have cereal, a ham sandwich, or microwaved pizza rolls for dinner. I sit down at one of the stools by the counter and watch as she takes a bright orange pot from the rack next to the pantry door and fills it with tap water. “So, what made today so good?”

She turns on the stove with a  _ click click click  _ of the gas and I think about earlier today. “I don’t know. I talked to some of my… friends.” Noticing I hesitated to say it, I clear my throat. “I had a presentation, and it went really well.”

Her eyebrows go up, her smile even wider. She doesn’t look as tired, as worked as she usually does. “The one you and your friend worked on on Saturday?” I nod my head as she walks to the pantry and takes out a box of pasta and a can of tomato sauce, grabbing another pot from the overhead rack, this time blue. Though the walls of the house are beige—zero time to paint—my mom always finds the best and most eccentric ways to bring color in; a teal couch, translucent green cups, a rainbow of pots and pans, a vermilion rug. It’s one of the only things that makes the house really look lived in, though the red shelves are beginning to gather dust.

“I think we did really well.”

“What book are you reading?”

“Watership Down.”

She gives a little tilt of her head though it’s clear from her expression that she’s never heard of it before. Using a can opener to open the tomato sauce, she turns away for only a moment, though she’s still speaking to me. “Well, I just want to say that I’m proud of you. No matter how that sounds. I don’t even care about the fact that you’re making friends— not that I don’t think you should—” she lets out a tiny laugh, a hand on her forehead. “Sorry, honey, long day. I’m just trying to say that I’m proud of you for just being you.”

I don’t say anything, but I smile and she sees it, and that’s enough for her. 

She changes the calendar on the fridge from July to September, and I open the canary-colored curtains, gathering dust. We set the circular dining room table for the first time in what feels like years, and sit down across from each other with plates of pasta and glasses of water with slices of lemon because my mom really wants to make it special. The meal passes in a warm silence—not the kind that’s awkward and heavy. A kind of silence that’s safe and cultivated. I don’t feel like I have to fill it up with words. I’m allowed to just be, and she is too.

Eventually, when she’s collecting the plates after I’d offered to wash them and she’d declined, I ask, “Why are you off early today?”

She shrugs, making an  _ eh  _ sound. “Well, Guy insisted. We were actually overstaffed today, especially with Pamela back from her trip.” I nod along, even if I’ve heard her coworker’s names so many times but can’t put faces to them. “He said that I work too hard. Told me that they couldn’t do it without me, but that I should take off the rest of the day to relax.” She has a gentle smile on her face; she almost looks miles away. I walk back over to the counter and stand across from her, tracing a little splash of water on the surface with my finger.

“That’s really great.”

“I don’t want to jinx myself,” she looks around as if she’s sharing something confidential, “but I think I’m going to be getting a promotion really soon.” She grins, the kind of smile where you’re tongue is stuck between your teeth, the kind of smile that forces you to smile right along. I check the time on the microwave display and cock my head.

“I have a few questions of Pre-Calc homework left to do, but I’ll come back down after?”

“Sounds awesome,” she says, turning off the water. “How about we watch a movie or something?”

“Yes.” We pass one last smile between each other and I climb the stairs feeling even lighter. Different. Airy. I want to dance around, even if even  _ thinking  _ that before would’ve made me feel stupid. I open the door to my room and close it softly, walking forward to my backpack to pull out the sheet of homework. I only have one or two problems left, so—

My phone lights up from where it’s sitting on the carpet, and I see the green and red buttons that indicate that someone is calling me.

I sit down near my desk, still in the waning sunlight, and reach to grab my phone from where it’s charging. It’s been sitting in the light and it’s warm. But as soon as I see the screen, my hands go cold, and I throw the phone back down. The light feeling evaporates, as if my heart has suddenly become a rock in my chest and my ribs are bowing against the weight of it. 

_ Mark Hansen. _

When he got his new phone, I didn’t bother setting the contact name as ‘Dad’. 

Part of me wants to answer because he never calls. In the back of my mind, I’m distinctly terrified because  _ why would he be calling?  _ I’m biting the inside of my cheek as I stare at the phone, doing nothing. It goes to voicemail, and I exhale a long breath.

I start reaching over to my backpack again, but for some reason, I pause. A minute passes, my eyes trained on the screen. Two. I wonder if he’ll call back. 

The screen lights up again, and I physically flinch. 

He left a voicemail. 

Cautiously, I pick up my phone, and walk over to my bed to sit cross-legged on top of the red plaid comforter. I tap on the notification and open the app, and then sit there, my finger hovering over the play button. I feel like I’m no longer in my room—almost as if I can see myself from far away, but, at the same time, the walls have disappeared, the posters and the light. All I see is the phone.

_ Stop this,  _ I think.  _ Stop this. _

I press the button, and look up as the audio plays. The walls are back. I squeeze a handful of the sheets in my fist, just to make sure they’re real. The fan turns lazily above me.

_ “Hey… son. I was sitting in my office today, and I saw that old telescope. Remember, that once with that famous… galaxy painting, painted on the bottom?” _

I don’t remember. My jaw has gone slack. I feel like my eyes are half-squinted, like they’re stuck in a constant twitch, or something. I actually haven’t heard his voice since the eighth grade. He called at Christmas, and then at my birthday. And then he was too busy with his kids.

_ “Anyway. I remembered your birthday, so… I thought I’d say, well, happy birthday, Mark. I know it’s late.” _

There’s a crackly pause. No-one calls me Mark except for him. My birthday is in March.

“ _ Y’know, uh, the kids and I have been walking the trails a lot, lately. September’s great in Colorado. The leaves turn colors. I bet you’d love that-- You always loved nature. I thought it was some kind of obsession, or something. You always drew them. I mean, I didn’t get it. When I was that age, I liked sports and video games… ” _

There’s a chuffing noise that sounds kind of like a laugh. I lean backward, mouth twisting crookedly. I did like that stuff. Mom gave me comic books for my eighth birthday. He doesn’t even—he doesn’t even know.

“ _ My little tiger, Isaac, climbed one of the advanced trails the other week. Stood like a champion, like Superman. We could see over the whole county!”  _

He sighs, and, detachedly, I wonder if I want to hear this.

“ _ Listen, kid, I know that you were always afraid to hike those trails, the real high ones, on the mountains. You were such a shy kid, I mean, you couldn’t even make cookies with your mom because you were afraid of the mixer being too loud. For a while, I was kind of worried you were… something was wrong with you-- God, sorry that came out wrong. I don’t know, not that, just... Like, maybe you had a disability, or something. It was weird. All the other fathers were catching balls with their sons at baseball games, and you got upset when I tried to take you. It was too loud. You thought the ball would hit you. You didn’t want to do half of the things I suggested because you were too afraid. _

_ “But… I’m sure you’re not like that anymore. I’m sure you’ve developed into the confident man who I always wanted you to be. I prayed for you to be. Let me know if you’d like to hike or hunt or something up here in Colorado. You could hang out with the kids, and Deborah.  _

_ “Uh, happy birthday.” _

Click.

The walls are still there, and I feel the sheets under my hands. 

Looking down, I can see the abyss of the spiral beneath me. The gravity is too strong. Chills break across my skin as I step into it. Lean into it. The feelings of it are quicker than any action could be. I kind of feel like there’s heat exuding from my face, like I would be able to see it, wavy orange lines, like in elementary school science class. My bottom lip is tingling; it always gets like that when I get upset. I used to think it was an allergic reaction.

I fall backwards onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. I can see the stars still stuck there, the ones that glow in the dark, but just look green in the daylight. Mom put them up for me, the birthday after he left. Thinking about, it’s kind of crazy that they’re still up. The fact that they’ve been there for half of my whole life.

_ Thought that something was wrong with you— _

It rings through the room. It pings off of the desk lamp and ruffles the papers there. It digs around in my backpack and seeps into my sketchbook. The words pulse in my arm. They force their way down my throat and into my lungs and I’m having trouble breathing, and I trace the lines of those stars with my eyes, and, in my head, I chase the words out of the window, and across the street. Past the school, toward the lake, down the side-streets. I follow them into the woods, and up, and up into the branches of a tree.

The world tilts. The weightlessness is different, though. That day in August, in the woods— it was pulling. It caressed my shoes, which hung in the emptiness, pulling with silver threads. Caught. Like all of my thoughts chained me to the center of the earth, and being up in that tree just allowed them to finally drag me down. Keep me there. Finally, unable to rise.

_ Stop this. Stop this. _

_ I’m probably having a panic attack,  _ I think, disconnected, but it’s so menial because the thoughts are so big and the idea of anything as human as a panic attack is so small.

I am chained down. I can feel it around my wrists, in my throat, my ankles, my spine. It’s all and nothing. Like it’s the biggest thing in the world, and it isn’t even tangible, and that just makes it even worse, because I’m broken by something that doesn’t exist. Bound up in a loop that I have the keys to. 

_ Who I always wanted you to be. _

I’m laying on my bed in my room with glow stars on the ceiling and Connor Murphy in my contacts list and his name on my cast. My arm is broken, but not all the way anymore. Not in the way that it was, a clean snap. The most painful thing I should have ever experienced, though I just remember being delirious, and numb. 

I try to take a breath, shivering, and it feels like the air’s been knocked out of me. The spiral has pulled me in circles. Battering and shattering, shuddering in the sound of a storm. I’ve closed my eyes. My face is hot, and it’s wet, and my eyeballs feel like they’re pulsing in my head. My sinuses are on fire. 

Remembering that day in the woods, I never would’ve thought how separate everything is. We go around believing that everything is connected. The air and the ground and the trees and the sun. But the sky is a different place from the ground. That feeling when you’re up high, on a ladder. Climbing a tree. The relief when your feet finally connect with the ground.  _ I’m safe. _

We’re not supposed to leave the ground. But, there, buffeted by air, I’d felt something unlike I’d ever known. A closure beyond all doubt. Surety.

(Even that had been false).

Then, I’d had the breath knocked out of me. I’d sat there, mouth gasping, not realizing that this was what being alive felt like. I try to remember the feeling when the air came in. 

And when it does come, and I’m no longer on the ground, I try to sit up. My head spins. I feel like I’ve just run a marathon while holding my breath. I pick my phone up off of the covers, open it, and delete the voicemail.

Something about the inside of me feels very wrong. It’s empty, and cold. Like a fire’s gone out. It was smoke that was pouring into my lungs, and embers falling from my eyes. I want to talk to someone. I want to get out of my head. I want to stop it. 

I hunch over and stare at my dark phone screen for ten whole minutes, thinking about how I want to talk to Jared. Ask him about the Pre-Calc homework, an excuse just to prove to myself that someone else can talk to me, that I haven’t gone see-through-invisible. But I don’t think Jared and I are friends anymore. Maybe we never were. Would friends really even need an excuse? Wouldn’t a friend be able to talk about being see-through-invisible with another friend?

So, before I obsess about it too much, I click on the grey  _ C  _ that is  _ Connor. _

_ Thanks for doing the project with me. _

About a minute passes before ‘ _ read’  _ pops up. 

_ no problem, it was cool _

_ those drawings were great _

_ Thanks :) _

_ I was thinking. Do you want to be partners again? _

_ for all of the future projects _

_ Definitely _

_ As long as we don’t have to steal any more art supplies _

_ ha, ha. _

_ but no promises _

I sniff and wipe my eye with the heel of my palm. Laying back down, on the bed, it’s easier than before. It’s a choice, softer and more gentle. I squeeze the blankets again, but this time to feel the texture of them, not out of anger, as if I was trying to hold on to the edge of the spiral, even though I’d already fallen in.

It’s kind of funny, really. How ironic it is. I’m crying in real life. I’ve just heard my father inadvertently tell me everything that’s wrong with me. But on the phone I seem… normal. Like nothing ever even happened. I scoot up against the pillows and pull my knees up, and I try to think, but it’s like I can’t look at my thoughts all the way— my head is a superhighway of redirections and detours. I just feel tired. I try to take more deep breaths.

_ Connor? _

_? _

_ Do you want to come over and hang out after school tomorrow? _

_ holy shit _

_ sorry _

_ you’re a lot bolder on the phone _

This makes me screw up my face a little. I consider putting the phone down and abandoning all hope of fixing the fact that I can’t talk to people. The spiral’s still there (it’s always there) but I don’t want to fall into it again. I don’t want to think about anything.

  
  
_ no _

_ evan _

_ it’s a good thing _

_ ok ? _

_ yeah, btw _

_ I do _

_ Really? _

_ Definitely not. that’s why i said i do _

_ What? _

_ I’m being sarcastic y e s i do _

_ :) _

_ see you tomorrow? _

_ no ? _

_ wooww _

  
  


I’m smiling a little. I put the phone down and stretch out, trying to exhale  _ everything,  _ even if my eyes are still burning and I’m congested and still have to focus on breathing just in case I accidentally forget.

I want to forget about the voicemail, but I know that I won’t. I know that it’ll linger in the back of mind, probably when I’m trying to sleep. That the loop will probably come back. A false ending.  _ You didn’t want to do half of the things I suggested because you were too afraid. _

There are so many things that I haven’t done. So many things, because I’ve been afraid. Never been to the beach, never been to a party. Never driven somewhere, even if I have my license— I feel stagnant. The same. And now, I’m suddenly rent by the urge to change. Never stayed up all night, never kissed— never kissed a girl. Never even been in a relationship.

So afraid to die, but not when it counts. So afraid to live, but not enough to succeed in dying.

It really adds up. All the things I’ve avoided doing. I can’t help but think that, if I were to die tomorrow, if I were to get hit by freak lightning or run over by a car or  _ something,  _ I’ll have experienced nothing. I don’t want to experience nothing.

In the car, on the way back. The sun setting into Connor’s profile. I thought he’d understood. Maybe he does. Maybe I’ll tell him.

Maybe I will.

I decide to finish the Pre-Calc homework tomorrow morning because I know that I won’t be able to focus and leave my room, shouting down that I’m going to take a quick shower and hoping that my voice doesn’t sound pinched and congested. When I open the door to the bathroom and flick on the light, there’s a skinny rectangular box of plastic wrap on the sink counter, a teal sticky note stuck to it with a Sharpie smiley face.

I try my best to smile back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mm, nothing like a good ol' Vt Icd Wht Tea Shk with no liquid cn sugar and some writing on a Saturday morning. Hope you guys' weekend is going as well as mine is so far. Stay tuned! We may or may not be a chapter away from an inciting incident... :0


	6. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Evan discuss paralyzed will. Zoe realizes that she can't pretend anymore. The 'em' dash is used way too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for referenced self-harm, intrusive thoughts on suicide.. etc. Man I feel like these tw's are call-outs for the mood of the chapter but I promise that it's not all angssstt. There's some fluff in here too ^^

“I still can’t believe that you take tennis.”

There are leaves scattered on the sidewalk, making crunching noises as our feet hit the concrete. Evan and I are walking side by side, casting four-thirty-o-clock shadows across the sidewalk. He’s got his bare arms crossed, obviously cold; the weather’s as capricious as usual. It pretends as if it’s going to be hot in the morning, but the day passes, and suddenly there’s a bite in the air. At least it’s comfortable. I’d take being cold over being sweltering hot any day of the week.

I was surprised when he asked me to come over last night. It’d taken me a solid minute to realize that I was grinning at my phone on the living room couch. I’d looked up to see Zoe looking at me with a derisively frightened expression, and I’d bared my teeth at her. I’d had to repaint my nails finally; telling Cynthia why I wouldn’t be home directly after school the next day had caused me to chip the rest of it off in a kind of nervous aggravation.

She’s been accepting enough of it, but that doesn’t mean that I’m okay with her looking at me the way that she did: watered-down pride. At least she won’t walk in on me smoking for the tenth time of the week; bite down on her lip, shake her head, flick on the overhead fan. As if whatever she had come in to ask me had disappeared. You’d think she’d be more strict about it, but, really, it’s Larry who’s like that. I don’t think Cynthia ever tells him. As if he can’t smell it on me.

“I swear to god, I don’t  _ take  _ tennis,” I groan. “Tennis took me. I didn’t sign up for it, Cynthia did. And the only other guy on the team’s a fucking pervert.”

He makes a disgusted noise, and, as we come to a stop sign, I follow him right instead of going straight. The houses are small, but most of them are well kept, with mowed lawns and statuettes and whatever else is cheerful enough to count. 

“Especially with my other electives as piano and illustration?” I scoff. “I mean, she almost lost her mind. Zoe’s taking AP Psychology, and she’s a Sophomore.”

“You can play the piano?” His voice sounds almost as if he’s talking to himself, breathing in the crisp air. A dog barks from some far-away yard.

“I do.” Piano lessons were actually kind of fun, when I was in the fourth grade. I was good enough that I could improv chords really well, for a nine year old, and Zoe would sing along with her little-girl voice and come up with lyrics about Pluto and ham sandwiches and the Eiffel Tower. Cynthia and Larry— back when they were mom and dad, back before things suddenly weren’t easy anymore and they became so determined to  _ fix  _ me that they became different people— ate it right up. They thought we’d be famous. I can still remember Zoe’s face: her front tooth missing, her light brown hair of one-million flyaways. Singing along.

Evan has his hands on the straps of his backpack, his hair ruffling a little in the chill. “I’ve always wanted to play an instrument,” he muses. “I don’t care what. But what’s the point of playing if you don’t, like, show people? I could never…” he grasps for the words, and when he doesn’t find them, he shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Music isn’t about performing. It’s about making,” I say in a sudden bout of philosophy-speak. “I mean, when I play, there’s usually never anyone around. If someone were to see me play, then I’d have to, like,  _ really  _ trust them. And besides.” I shrug, putting my hands in my back pockets. “The only person that I need to worry about hearing it is me.”

“That’s kind of like drawing,” he admits. “But people always try to explain your own art to you. They don’t care that it’s not their perception that’s the dominant one.” We walk. Above, on the lampposts and power lines, birds congregate. “You know,” he says, quietly. “You were the only person who really understood the drawing I showed you.”

“The one with the tree?”

“Yeah.” He seems a little self-conscious about it, and for a minute I worry that he won’t continue. Letting out the breath he’d taken, he says, “My Illustration teacher made me show it to the class— everyone said it was peaceful and stuff— I don’t know.”

The air has that clean autumn smell— overhead, there are dense clusters of grey cloud cover on the horizon, so it’ll probably rain later. You can feel it on your skin, the weight of it.

Evan turns into the walkways of one of the houses; the lawn’s a little overgrown, but it’s… kind of charming. There are flower boxes in one of the second story windows. The front door is a striking shade of cerulean blue. On the patio’s railing, there’s a discarded set of wind chimes that have been taken down, and one of those owl statues meant to keep the birds away.

He walks up the front steps. “Here it is,” he says on a breath, shrugging the backpack off and pulling a set of keys from the front pocket.

“It’s nice. I like the door.”

“My mom did it years ago. It’s one of the only things she had time to paint.”

He opens the door for me, and walking in feels incredibly strange and important. Being at someone’s house is a new kind of thing. I can’t help the feeling of hoping it’ll last.

The house itself isn’t anything special. In the front landing, there’s a stairwell, and, through a right archway, there’s a kitchen and dining room. To the left I can see a small living room. None of the walls are painted anything colorful— neutral greys and beiges— but there’s something chaotic and wonderful in the decorations. On the windows, there are canary-colored curtains, gathering dust, as if they’re perpetually drawn. Cherry-red shelves and bookcases, and a teal couch.

We toe off our shoes and leave them at the front door. “I love your house,” I say, because, as he leads me into the kitchen, I can hardly believe the fact that so much color can exist in one space. Cynthia must’ve decorated our house when the Pantone color of the year was ‘ _ Sand Dollar’. _

“Really? Jared said once that it looked like the person who bought the furniture was color blind. Do you want anything to drink?”

“It’s nice. And I’m good.” Evan pulls a water bottle from the fridge, and then kind of stands there, and I look around, taking in the room: a cluster of poetry magnets on the side of the fridge, the calendar with the painting of the sunflowers in a gold vase.

“I, uh… what do you want to do…?” He bites his lip and screws the cap back on the water bottle, after taking a long drink, leaning against the counter. “I don’t have people over, usually.”

“I don’t know either. Show me your room?”

“Yeah, okay.” I follow him up the stairs. On the walls, there are framed pictures: Little Evan, holding a leaf up to the camera. Evan on the swings, or playing with toy cars. What looks like a middle-school Evan smiling a crooked smile and holding up an Honor Roll certificate. I try not to stare, but it feels so  _ different  _ being in someone else’s space that it’s hard not to. “You were a cute little kid.”

He turns, hand on a doorknob. “Oh, god, those pictures.” He laughs self-consciously, leaning on the door without turning the knob. “Yeah, my mom took those. She’s really sentimental. I think I get it from her.”

“Really?” I walk toward him, and he opens the door. “Y’know I once saved a bubblegum wrapper that Zoe gave me when she was six? I think it’s still in my closet.”

“That’s so sweet… I feel so different from when I was a kid. Like I barely remember anything from then, just bits and pieces.” We both step inside, and I look around.

Evan’s room… Evan’s room is, well, I don’t know. It’s real, like, so real that it hurts. The walls are a shade of cool grey that is somehow more full of life than the downstairs rooms, and pushed up against the right wall is a bed covered in a red plaid comforter. There’s a desk opposite of it, and bookshelves. The window has curtains, too, the same yellow ones from downstairs, and with the sun shining in, it just looks… it looks like someone lives here. Not like someone survives here.

“This is pretty nice,” I say, which feels significantly less then what I mean. Evan’s taken off his backpack and walked to the window, and is sitting right in the sunlight, his shadow casting onto my feet. My breath catches. That light… the way that it traces his profile. I remember the day on the patio, sitting in the rain. Him, smiling, and how it shifted everything in him and he was just  _ right.  _ He didn’t need the light then to look so happy. And now… 

_ Oh, shit. _

I mean. 

It’s not like I didn’t know before.

“Thanks.” He turns, putting his hands on the windowsill. There’s little succulents there. “I really want to paint my walls, but I probably never will…”

There are glow stars on the ceiling, and it’s so cute and kiddish that I immediately feel like my shadows have dimmed. The light’s burned them away. Evan closes his eyes and sighs contentedly. “I like— your map,” I stammer, scrambling for something to say.

“Oh, yeah?” He opens his eyes and walks over to it, a huge map of the States along the wall near his desk. “I got it for my eighth birthday. I was supposed to mark it up, but I didn’t really get around to it.”

Stepping over, I look at the map with him. He traces the Texas-Louisiana border. “I know what you mean. About not really _remembering?_ Bits and pieces? You’re right. It’s like clips— Like from a movie.” I look down at his desk— there’s a desk lamp in the corner, and a couple of books lined up. College essay prompts in a neat stack, a couple of art pencils. A box of plastic wrap and a roll of silver duct tape. Evan goes to sit on his bed, and just as he leaves, I see a blue and red corner of a comic book at the bottom of a stack of papers.

“Holy shit, no way.”

“What?”

Carefully, I take the book and shift it out from under the papers. “This comic— I totally read this one when I was a kid. It was my favorite.”

There’s a smile in his voice. “Really? Yeah, I was obsessed with Wolverine when I was little. That and the Ninja Turtles. My mom even made me this amazing Wolverine costume for Halloween when I was, like, nine, I think?”

“I know that once, Zoe and I went as Lilo and Stitch for Halloween. I don’t know how old I was. The pictures are somewhere.”

“That’s adorable.”

“Yeah, it was pretty cute. But I got blue face paint in my ear and totally had a meltdown.” I laugh in spite of myself, remembering, and put the comic back down. “Yeah, not a good time.” Looking back up at the map, I step back a little and take my bag from around my shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. “So, why haven’t you pinned this sucker up? Places to go, things to do…”

“I don’t know. I don’t really—I don’t know.” When I look at him, he looks deep in thought, and I can tell he’s chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Can I say something weird?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you ever… do you ever feel like you’re never going to  _ do  _ anything? Like, if I were to die tomorrow, I would, like, not have done anything. Sorry if that’s dark, I didn’t mean to ruin the mood—,”

I pause. “No, I know what you mean, I think,” I say, leaning against the desk. “I mean, I haven’t done shit. I’ve never been to a concert, I haven’t ridden on a rollercoaster…”

“Me neither!” He tilts his head back and rolls his shoulders, stretching. “It’s so stupid… I want to but I can’t. I always get freaked out, or think that I could never do something so crazy, or...” His mouth settles into a dejected line and he shrugs.

“Paralyzed will.” I say without meaning to, and Evan gives me a questioning look. “Sorry. It just reminded me of something one of my old therapists used to bring up. Paralyzed will. You want to do something, but you just can’t.”

He’s cross-legged, head cocked. “I don’t want to not do anything. I wish I could just  _ do  _ stuff. Like a normal person. And not get so caught up in worrying about everything.”

“Me too,” I admit. 

There’s a moment of silence, and, lest it get awkward again, Evan asks (a little too quickly), “So, what was up with Alana at lunch yesterday?”

“Alana? Oh.”

“I know she’s helping you study for the SAT— and me too, I guess—”

“Yeah. But she also wants to help me. I don’t know what she said, something about Buddhism. Like, it’s beneficial to help other people.” I walk over to the window and crouch down to look at the succulents. They seem really well taken care of; not that I’m a suitable judge of plants. I once killed a plant that was supposed to symbolize longevity.

“Like the Eightfold Path, or something?” asks Evan, who probably got a five on the AP World exam. Maybe he can help me study too.

“I guess. I can’t help but feel like it’s just something to check off of her bucket list, though.” Evan laughs a little at this, but, suddenly, I’m distracted. When I don’t say anything, he leans forward a tiny bit, awkwardly. 

“You, uh, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Thinking about that, about Alana Beck helping me being just another checkbox on a list has gotten my mind working. I run through a brief list of all the things that I’ve never done, all the paralyzed will. “A bucket list,” I mutter detachedly.

“What…?”

I blink and nod slowly. “Evan.”

“Yeah?” His voice is a little cautious, as if he’s afraid that I’m about to be like  _ I’m not your friend anymore. _

“We were just saying, about all the things we’ve never done. What if we have a bucket list?”

Now it’s his turn to blink. “A… bucket list.”

“Yeah.” The more I think about it, the more appealing it sounds. I cross the room to him. “Hear me out. The feeling that you wish you could-- the paralyzed will. Why don’t we do it?” I throw my hands up. “Fuck it! Fuck all of this, why don’t we just do it all?”

“...Do it all?”

“Go to concerts. Paint your walls. Live fucking vicariously for once. I’m tired of standing still.”

He looks both alarmed and intrigued. “Wait, wait. Hold on, this is a lot—,”

I’m rummaging through my backpack for a sheet of notebook paper. 

“Connor,” Evan calls. “Connor. Are we, like, actually doing this…?”

“Fuck yeah, we are.” The idea has taken root, and really, there’s no going back now. “Or at least I am, but you should too.”

“Seriously?” He crawls forward and sits on the lip of the bed, and I sit next to him.

“Go, now. Name the first things that come to your mind that you want to do. Now, quick!”

Yep, he’s definitely alarmed. “I— uh—I don’t know! Paint my walls—” I scribble it down. “Uh… get a haircut?”

“If you could do  _ anything _ , anything at  _ all,  _ you’d get a haircut?” He mutters something inaudible. “What?”

And in the quietest voice possible, he whispers, “I want to tell my dad to fuck off.”

He looks up, and I’m grinning at him; very possibly the biggest and most astonished grin that I’ve ever maintained for longer than a millisecond. Even if I don't know any of the reasons why Evan Hansen, who I've never heard say _fuck_ before wants to stick it to his old man, I'll support it. “Yes.  _ Yes!” _ He’s gripped by a sudden nervous and excited laughter, and it’s contagious. “Keep going,” I insist, clutching the paper. 

“Going to a concert’s good, I’ve never done that.”

“Have you gone camping?”

“No, I—,”

“You should! It’s amazing!”

“I want to go… to a party?”

“Holy shit, Evan. Yes.”

He nods, still laughing. “What else, what else?”

“Um, stay up all night.”

“Climb to the top of a mountain.”

“Do something reckless.”

“Actually drive somewhere. I have my license, but I’m always too freaked out to actually  _ do it _ ,” he explains breathlessly.

“Yes!”

“I’ve never seen the ocean, and I want to learn an instrument. And I, I want to ask out the person I like.”

In the back of my mind, there’s a faint alarm blaring to the tune of  _ zoezoezoezoezoe  _ but I try to nod, quirking an eyebrow. “Bold, Hansen.”

“That’s the point, right?” He lets out a breath, suddenly finding himself in a moment of doubt, and falls backwards onto the bed. “Is this a dumb idea?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“But I don’t think I could even go to a concert. I’d probably get overwhelmed—”

“The point,” I interject, cutting him off. “Is to step out of your comfort zone and do all the things that you want to do without worrying if it’s good enough. To just be.”

Evan’s quiet. 

In the sudden silence, I can hear birds outside of his window. There’s a knot of worry building up in my chest, which I try to ignore. Like maybe I was being demanding or confrontational. Like maybe I might scare him away, or he’ll decide that it was a bad idea to be friends with a freak anyway.“Hey, I’m sorry if I kind of threw that on to you, you don’t have to do anything if—,”

“Can I tell you something?”

His voice is quiet again, as if the laughing and the half-shouting have expended his energy. My heart skips a beat, and I fall backwards, laying next to him with our legs draped over the edge of the bed. “Yeah, of course.”

“My dad, um.. My dad called me last night.”

Above, the glow stars are milky green in the bright sunlight. It hits me that Evan hasn’t mentioned him to me before. I’ve heard all about his mom, who works shifts at the hospital downtown, who’s thoughtful and kind. But... “Your dad?”

“Yeah.” He takes a really deep breath, and then blows it out, and then takes a really deep breath again. “Well… he left when I was little. It’s not, like, a huge issue. But… he doesn’t talk to us often. And he left a voicemail to wish me a happy birthday last night, even though it’s in March.”

“Shit.”

His voice is barely a whisper. “He… it’s not a big deal. He said some really messed up stuff. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“He said— he said, when I was a kid, he thought something was wrong with me.”

It’s quiet. So quiet, that the world seems still. As if someone has pressed pause. And then I say, “Jesus, Evan, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I just mean I’m sorry  _ for _ you. Not in a pitying way. He’s… he sounds like an asshole”

“It’s just—” Evan makes a noise in the back of his throat. “He told me that—that there were so many things that I never did because… because I was scared. I don’t want to be like that anymore. I don’t want him to  _ have  _ that, you know?”

The bed creaks as he sits up. 

“It gave me a panic attack,” he recognizes, rubbing a hand against his forehead. “I don’t— I don’t even know why, because, like, it wasn’t that big of a deal, it just felt like everything that I like, everything that I was afraid he thought was true—,”

It’s quiet again. My body feels heavy with the weight of the words that he’s been carrying. Him whose smile lights up the whole world. How could anyone take that away? I sit up. He looks at me, and his face is red. 

“None of it is true.” For once, I feel like he’s looking at me straight in my eyes. I can feel my chest fluttering and falling all at once. “He’s an asshole. None of it is true, that there’s something wrong with you, or that you can’t do anything. You don’t need to prove anything to him.”

“I feel like I need to prove it to myself,” he whispers, looking down. 

I reach toward the edge of the comforter and grab the piece of notebook paper. “Well? Now you can.”

\--

  
  


I leave Evan’s house at six thirty. 

By the time I’ve left, we’ve finished the bucket list and have sworn to both each other and ourselves (multiple times) that yes this is actually happening and that it should last for the entirety of Junior year and into the summer if necessary.

The list reads as follows:

_ Paint walls _

_ Get a haircut (Evan) _

_ Go to a concert _

_ Go to a party _

_ Go camping (Connor has already done this but I want to again so) _

_ Stay up all night _

_ Do something reckless _

_ Ice skate _

_ See the ocean _

_ Go to an amusement park _

_ Make my mark  _

_ Learn an instrument (also evan) _

_ Do something unprecedented  _

_ Learn to sail _

_ Drive _

_ Ask out the person that i like _

_ Go to a baseball game _

_ Tell dad to fuck off (also also evan) _

~~_ (but maybe also connor too) _ ~~

Most of the things on the list apply to both of us, and we’ve made the executive decisions that, one, there’s no shame if you can’t do something because you’re uncomfortable, or whatever, and, two, it doesn’t matter what order we do them in. And Evan kept arguing that unprecedented and reckless were practically the same thing, but I assured him otherwise.

We both have a copy so that, whenever we actually do something, we can strike it off. I have mine folded neatly in my pocket when I leave his house.

The night air is chilly and smells like something woodsy and crisp. The leaves sound endlessly loud under my feet but are backed-up by the sounds of cars on the street outside of the neighborhood, the rustling of trees above. The stars aren’t visible above the cloud cover, or else I would’ve looked at them. Zoe used to tell me about them, in the fifth grade. She could pick out Orion, Cassiopeia, Libra. And then in the sixth grade I acted shitty and jealous to her about it and she never looked at them with me again.

I get to the house and open the door. Cynthia’s car is in the driveway, but if she hears me, she doesn’t say anything. Larry must be working late.

Kicking off my shoes, I climb the stairs with a hand on the banister and am about to go into my room when I hear Zoe’s voice.

“Connor?” It’s quiet, soft. Not at all how she acts at school: bright, loud, like a million colors, never tired of shining. As her brother, I can tell you: she gets tired. It eats her up sometimes.

Her door’s ajar, and there’s warm light casting an indeterminate shape of light across the dark hallway. I push it open a little and peek my head inside. She’s sitting on the floor, and her face is red. Her shoulders are low in defeat.

Stepping into the room, I usually wouldn't close the door behind me, but I do now. 

“I know you don’t understand, but I can’t figure it out.” She sniffs in frustration and casts a glance at the slightly crumpled packet of paper at her feet. In my sister’s room, walls painted lilac, fairy lights hanging but not turned on, it feels impossible to ever be mean to her. And I have. I’ve been evil to her, to my little sister. The carpet’s soft against my socks as I sit down next to her, shrugging the bag off. The packet is crowded with little black lines, numbers, letters.

“Jesus Christ.” Picking it up, it must be three pages thick, and she barely has any done. “Why do they give you so much homework?”

“I don’t know.” She sticks the back of her palm against her eyes, like she’s embarrassed. “I don’t know, but... Connor, if I don’t pass this test than mom’s going to kill me—,”

“She’s not. You get straight A’s, Zo. They’re crazy for you.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She breathes out thickly and looks up, eyes shining. “This is so stupid. I’m so dumb. I’ve had it for a week, and I’ve just been putting it off…” She picks up a ponytail holder from the carpet and pulls her thick hair back from her face, leaving it bare-looking, shiny from tears. “I don’t understand, and none of my friends are answering.”

“You’re not dumb.” I don’t know what else to say, because I can’t help her. I don’t understand the math at all.

She looks around, and then admits, “I’m going to fail this test.”

“You always say that. And you always pass.”

“I can’t do it anymore— I can’t keep worrying about—,”

“You’re right.” I look around, at the guitar in its stand, her galaxy-printed backpack with the indie-rock-band buttons. The pink flannel in her closet, and the spiked collar necklace on the dresser. Zoe, who’s so kind to others, but so evil to herself.  _ People are just collections of contradictions.  _ “You can’t keep worrying about this school stuff. You’re going to get into fucking Harvard.”

“It’s not that.” She sniffs again, her chest shaking, as if she’s about to start crying again. “I’m… I’m just— I’m worried about… you…” It’s barely a whisper, trailing off. The words hang in the air.

“What? Why?”

“Are you still cutting yourself, Connor?” She asks, both sharp and defeated. Her eyes won’t meet mine. Her head is in her hands.

The ground suddenly disappears from beneath me. “ _ What?” _

She doesn’t say anything. I don’t think she can tell if she’s ashamed of asking or not. I grit my teeth. “I just… I thought that you were getting better since May—,”

“ _ Why do you think I’m— _ ,”

“Because!” Her voice raises, and we both shoot glances at the door as if we expect Cynthia to come in, trying to fix everything, trying to fix the unfixable. A few minutes pass, and she doesn’t, but staring at the door gave me time to think. I can’t believe I’ve made her worry about it. She’s been carrying it around with her. 

When I look back at her, she’s got her navy-blue-socked foot on the packet, and her eyes on me. Soft, and red. As if someone had taken the opacity of them and turned it way down, so that I could see straight through her. I know my sister like I know my own mind. The worry, the hate. The want to be noticed, to be happy. For me to be happy. Her lip quivers a little bit. “I took a shower on Sunday morning, and the razor wasn’t in the box. I didn’t see it, and it’s like everything else just went away. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. But you were fine— I mean, as fine as…” 

Zoe turns her face away. “Well, it was in the bathroom cabinet. In one of the organizer things. I thought maybe mom used it, or something, I don’t know. I wanted to think that. But she doesn’t even use the upstairs bathroom, and then you weren’t wearing t-shirts, even at home like usual, and I thought that maybe you didn’t want them to see— that— again—,”

“I’m fine, Zo—,”

“But—,”

“No, seriously. It’s fine.”

“Connor—,”

“Zoe, drop it.”

She presses her lips together, nose flaring. Shaking her head, she leans back against the side of her bed. “Why don’t you ever let me be there for you? I just want to be there for you!”

“Why?” I demand in a flash of sudden anger. “I’m an asshole to you!”

“So what? You’re my fucking brother and _ I don’t want you to die! _ ” She screams the last word, and just stares, her eyebrows drawn, her mouth half-open. I can’t see through her anymore. She’s gone as solid as stone.

“ _ I’m not going to die!”  _ I bark back, and balance my weight on my forearms to stand up. 

“What else do you want me to think?! People don’t just get better after something like that—,”

“Nine weeks!”

“But what if it wasn’t enough?” She’s really crying, now, pleading. She has her eyes squeezed shut, her hands squeezing in her ponytail.

“ _ IT WAS ENOUGH!”  _ I’m panting with the effort of talking about it. My throat feels raw. I think Cynthia knows better then to barge in now. Zoe’s sobbing, choking out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and my heart is ripping apart and my wrists are burning and I want to go to her and hold her and tell her it’s okay, but she won’t listen because she’s smarter than that and she refuses to accept it when I’m lying. My head pounds, and I’m afraid that if I say anything or if I move toward her everything will just break and so I just grab my bag and leave the room and close the door softly, and then go into mine and close the door softly, and I open up my closet and climb inside and then sit in the dark and try not to cry because I don’t deserve to be sorry for myself when I was the one who caused it all in the first place.

I can hear Zoe sobbing in the room across the hall.  _ You’re a fucking asshole,  _ I tell myself.  _ It probably would be fucking better if you were dead. _

_ Can’t you see that that’s what she’s scared of? _

_ Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. _

_ You’re ruining everything you touch. _

It’s embarrassing to admit, but I want to do something drastic. I want to punch a hole in the wall. I want to scream and sob until my throat’s gone beyond pain, beyond numb, so that I’ll never speak again. But all I’ve ever shown her is coldness about this. Indifference. Why believe I could ever exist otherwise?

After a while, it’s quiet. I can’t tell if it’s been an hour or a day or a year. Maybe I’ll leave the small, warm space of my closet and, out the window, everything will be decayed and rusted and wild dogs will roam the streets. I feel as though I’ve been sitting for so long that my joints have rusted and locked up and my lights have gone dim and flickering.

I take my phone out of my pocket and it’s eight-oh-two. Go figure. 

The flashlight is a harsh brightness in the dark, and, reaching into my pocket, I gently unfold the bucket list. With a dull pencil I found on the ground near my shoes, paper against the carpet, I messily write  _ try to be better _ . 

I fold it up, put it away, and change into a t-shirt, the nice one that Zoe got me for my fifteenth birthday, the Unknown Pleasures one with the rectangular radio signal in white squiggles across the front. 

Count on my sister to notice every time my self control wavers. My arms aren’t red. It was almost a week ago. They’re just scabbed a little, on top of the old marks that are faded like pale grease pencil. I wrap my arms around myself, and then I fumble around for a box of cigarettes and a lighter.

The window opens pretty easily, because I open it often. It doesn’t squeak like it used to, but that doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t care if Larry’s coming home soon. I light the cigarette, and then I inhale from it like it’s the answer and not one of the problems. 

_ People are just collections of contradictions, Connor,  _ says Simon the Therapist in my ear. _ They can want to be better, but keep falling backwards. They can truly despise themselves but find reasons to hold on. Everyone’s different, but you don’t have to be ashamed of those habits. Everyone has them; drinking, smoking, self-harm. You just have to acknowledge them and try to work through them. What do you think they’ll give you? What are you trying to find in them? _

The smoke rises and joins with the cloud cover, and I lean out the window and try not to ash into the yard.

_ \-- _

“What do you have first period?” I ask Evan in the hallway before school. The rain started at around six in the morning; just when we all thought that it was done, it came back, bringing with it an even deeper cold front. He’s wearing a dark blue sweater and a pair of jeans, but he still looks cold; his freckles are stark on his skin in the blue storm-light shining through the windows.

“A-Push,” he responds, cracking his knuckles absentmindedly. We’re standing in the main hallway, each leaning with one shoulder against the wall, so maybe he’s nervous talking because there are lots of other people around. Maybe he’s nervous talking to me where others can see.

“What do you have in that class?”

He hesitates, surprised. “...A 92?”

“Oh, holy shit. I knew it’d be good, but like, everyone says that US History is really hard, so I thought it’d be  _ good  _ for an AP class. Jesus, how?”

“I do the readings.” He shrugs. “And it’s not that good. I can be better.”

“Yeah, okay.” I look up and catch Zoe’s eye, walking past with a friend. She stops, looks like she’s about to say something, but just shakes her head and catches up. She drove me to school this morning, and we didn’t say anything. It was the worst kind of silence. When I look back, Evan is watching her too, and I feel a tinge of jealousy that I wish I didn’t. “Listen,” I start, trying to gain his attention, “that means that it wouldn’t hurt you if you skip today, then, right?”

I can’t tell if it’s the light, but it looks like he’s noticeably paler. “You mean… like skip class?”

“You don’t have to whisper, Evan, it’s not like the hall monitor is going to catch you. And yes, I do.”

“Uhh… Why?”

“Well, I have Piano first period. The class has four other people in it, and I’m the only one who  _ knows  _ how to play one-hundred-percent. I usually just set up in one of the practice rooms and play for the whole period.”

“Really?”

“I just wanted to see if you’d like to start learning.”

His eyes go very, very wide. “Wait, really?”

“I mean, it’s on the list, isn’t it?”

“You’re gonna teach me piano?” He’s just shy of a smile. I can see it in his eyes. I stare out one of the windows instead.

“If you want me to?”

He just nods. Then the five minute bell rings, and a look of conflict comes over his face. “I can’t skip…” he mutters, thinks, and then continues with, “You know, the teacher’s on maternity leave. We just have a sub, and I don’t think we’re doing anything today. I could get a pass.”

I roll my eyes, trying to focus on talking to him instead of everything that happened last night sifting down to the bottom. Collecting. “However, Hansen. I’ll see you when I see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyyy we got us a plot device up in here. Make way for the Bucket List: a.k.a my attempt at mashing a bunch of amazing scenarios into one fic. Yes! Everything on this list will have a chapter. Yeehaw?  
> For all of you who comment or kudos, thank youuu. Comments are like presents on Christmas morning. I'm so happy to be writing this story for everyone.  
> Lastly, a song suggestion: 'Legend of Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)', performed by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. It is an orchestral suite, so some of you may not be down, but give it a shot because daaaamn those suspensions and dissonances I just-  
> k. Done nerding out for now.  
> Hope you're well!


	7. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan learns the truth behind E-sharp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day earlier than scheduled? On my deh fanfiction?? It's more likely than you'd think.

From the moment that the bell rings and first period starts, I can’t seem to stop fidgeting. The prospect of skipping class has sent a ball of nervous energy straight into my core and I keep shifting in my seat, leaning right, and then slumping down, and then thinking about my posture and trying to sit up straight.

The substitute, a woman who often spends class time online shopping after passing out reading assignments, is sitting at her desk with her laptop open in front of her and a huge Starbucks cup attached to her hand; something pink and sickening looking. The textbook pages are written in loopy cursive on the board, with the note _study hall, no phones_ underneath in dark purple Expo marker.

The room is quiet; it’s the kind of silence that makes me worried that I’m breathing too loud, or makes swallowing or sniffing or clearing your throat something mildly terrifying. The last thing I want to do is stand up and walk to her desk, ask to go to the music hall, where everyone will watch and listen to me. I gnaw on the inside of my cheek and scribble around the _R_ on the cast, the dark blue sleeve of my sweatshirt rolled up to the elbow to accommodate. 

I trace the clock on the wall with my eyes. It feels like it’s been an hour, when it’s only been fifteen minutes, and I think about Connor in one of the practice rooms, waiting, and that just makes the nervous energy worse. I take the risk of clearing my throat and scratch the back of my neck.

The lights are on, the pale fluorescents that sometimes flicker, but through a window to the right of me, the courtyard, viewed from the second story, is under a chilly grey pall of rain. I don’t think it’s going to thunderstorm, like it did a week ago, but the rain isn’t letting up either way. Hopefully it’ll slow down by lunch.

I look back at the clock. Two minutes have passed, and I sigh through my nose and bite down harder. It’s like pulling a bandaid, I think. Like how even if you count yourself down from five until ripping it off, you still start bracing for the sting and it’s really just better to take yourself by surprise and pull on ‘three’.

I stand up, the very distinct sensation of _whywhywhywhy_ in the back of my head, and I walk to the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. When I ask if I can have a pass to go to the music hall to work on something for the rest of the period, she writes it without even looking up. I blink and take the slip from her, grabbing my backpack and leaving the room as quickly as possible.

It’s cold outside of the room, probably because the main hallways are lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that let the chill seep through, and because it’s way more expensive to heat a huge building than to cool it down. The temperature of the high school is always uncomfortable, really.

The quiet is just as heavy here as it was in the US-History class, and I can hear my footsteps echoing as I walk, the irregular pattern as I take the stairs one at a time. I’ve never actually been inside the music hall, but I’ve seen Zoe walk in there before, her guitar case swinging over her shoulder, enough to know where it is. The entrance is a double door with two push bars, a hallway lined with the band hall, the choir room, and, way further down, the dance room, for some reason. I turn, wondering where exactly Connor is.

I wander through the maze of practice rooms for a few minutes, nervousness growing in the hand-clenching and cheek-biting. When I finally come up to one of the practice rooms, following the rising and falling sounds of piano notes, and see him, it takes a great deal of energy not to visibly sink with relief. He’s got his back to the door, sitting at the piano bench, and he’s running through scales, I think.

There’s something strange about the moment when you see someone and they haven’t seen you yet. I don’t want to interrupt, so I just stand and watch him as he plays; he’s wearing a maroon sweater, and there’s a rip in the fabric of his black jeans so that I can see the paleness of his knee from the side. The scales only take a few minutes, and when he’s done, I swallow and knock quietly on the door.

He turns from the piano, sees me, and stands up and opens the door. He’s smiling, and I have the thought that smiling Connor looks a million worlds different from scowling Connor. He has dimples that I never noticed before, framing his face.

Standing in the door-frame, he looks at me as if he needs the secret password or something. “Got a pass?”

I hold up the sheet of lime-green paper, smiling, and he laughs, falling away from the door, beckoning me in. I shut it behind me.

The piano is one of the school-issued ones, with a back of cross-hatched wood, and three gold pedals. I’m overcome by how intimidating it is, and realize that Connor’s going to see me fumbling around trying to play like an idiot. What if my hands are sweaty? I swipe them subconsciously on my jeans and look around the small practice room. “Can you play me something first? So I can see?” I ask, and he shrugs, sitting down on the bench and relaxing into a lazy position.

“I don’t know what.”

“Anything’s good.” I swallow, sitting on a chair near the door and putting my backpack at my feet. The room is very small, and kind of warm. It’s hot actually. I rub my hands on my knees.

“Okay, okay,” he says, sitting up straight. “This is just the most recent one. Please don’t like… make fun of me.”

“I won’t.” He turns back around to the piano and places his hands on the keys. Takes a deep breath, his shoulders tensing and relaxing. And then he starts playing.

The music is sudden and breathtaking; not breathtakingly beautiful, not lyrical or melodic. It’s nothing soft or slow. It’s rhythmic, sharp, and there’s a deep baseline of jumping notes. His fingers run across the keys in a gentle way, in no way seeming to convey the agitated music. It’s just what I’d expect from him. It’s _really_ good.

I try to follow the music with my eyes, try to see what keys he presses to make it sound like music, not disjointed notes, but I can’t really focus on both hands at once, so in the end, I just close my eyes.

And then there’s another sound, and I’m so surprised that my brain doesn’t even really accept it, and then I’m grinning so widely that I’m glad he can’t see me. 

Connor is _singing._ Connor is singing _well_.

There’s a rush of something that distracts me from the anxiety knotted in my chest. Like that feeling you get when you try really good food for the first time, or when you see a cute puppy, or when someone feels proud of you... My heart is rising, like it’s filling up. I remember what he said yesterday: _If someone were to see me play, I’d have to really trust them._ I can’t stop smiling. He’s done something to the piano to make it sound more resonant. The notes bleed into each other. Connor is singing.

_Me, with my head high,_

_And my tears dry,_

_Get on without my guy,_

_You went back to what you knew,_

_So far removed_

_from all that we went through._

_And I tread a troubled track,_

_My odds are stacked,_

_I go back to black…_

_We only said goodbye with words, and_

_I died a hundred times._

_You go back to her and I_

_Go back to.._

I can hardly believe it. He really gets into it; his shoulders work, and he puts his head back, and his voice is painful and breaking and he spits the words but at the same time sings them as if they are honey, pouring and slow.

It sounds like it hurts so much. But at the same time, when he turns his head, he’s smiling. I doubt I could ever play like that, be a conduit for the amount of emotion that he’s conveying. I’ve never seen this side of him. I put a hand to my mouth to cover it, something I find myself doing when I feel like I’m out of control of my facial expression. I can’t stop smiling. I really can’t.

  
  


_We only said goodbye with words,_

_I died a hundred times._

_You go back to her and_

_I go back to,_

_I go back to black…_

  
When it’s over, the last note rings out, and he lets his hands rest on the keys and blows out a long breath. He turns around, and his face is red, his eyebrows knit together, as if he’s worried about whether I’ll like it or not. Under his gaze, I feel sweat break across my skin. I don’t know what to say to get what’s in my head out of my mouth. I don’t even understand _what_ is in my head. 

“You’re amazing,” I blurt, and Connor throws his head back and laughs so hard that I’m worried he’ll fall off of the bench. I feel my face blaze up, and I look away, laughing nervously.

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t know you could sing… like _that.”_

“Like that?”

I don’t have anything to say. Words are failing me. His eyes, which before were harsh, have been softened in this moment. I notice for the first time that there’s a spot of brown in one of them. They aren’t as steely as before, as solid. They seem reflective. I gesture with my hands. “I mean—you were—the singing was—,”

He laughs again, and I groan, my face hot. “God, I don’t know. It was more than good, okay?”

He smiles at me, his expression amused. “I’m just messing with you. Sorry.” I kind of want to be nearer to him. Just close. I want the energy that he’s created. It’s weird. I don’t know what to think of that. 

“Are you ready?”

I bite the inside of my cheek and admit, “No.”

Connor scoots over and pats the bench next to him. It’s a small bench, and my leg is flush against his, and my shoulder, and my side, and I rub my hands on my jeans and my heart is racing because I’m going to mess this up very badly, and—

“Okay,” he starts, clearing his throat a little. He looks nervous too, like maybe he’s worried about teaching me. “This, right before the two black keys?” He presses down, and the piano pings out a note. “This is C. The white keys, going up, it’s just in alphabetical order. So D, E…” He plays the corresponding notes. “And this is G. After that, go back to A.”

“Alright.” I say, even though I’ve barely picked up what he’s said. The room is way too hot. Maybe it’s the sound proofing stuff.

“The black keys are sharps and flats. So, like, the in between notes. Going up is sharps, and down is flats. C-sharp, D-sharp, F-sharp…”

“Wait,” I say, trying not to interrupt. “There’s no E-sharp?”

“Oh. Sorry, I forget that you’ve never played an instrument before. Huh,” he shakes his head quickly, hair flying. “Okay, um, there’s no E-sharp because between E and F, it’s only a half-step. You couldn’t fit a note between them. But technically you could just call E-sharp 'F'."

He notes my expression and shakes his head. "Uh, y'know what? It's fine. Don't worry about that for now. That's music theory stuff."

I nod. "So this way is sharps and this way is flats?" I point up and down the piano.

"Mhm. I’m going to quiz you, okay? Don’t freak out,” he adds, seeing my face. “I’m just going to point to a key, and you try to tell me what the letter name is.”

“Okay..?”

He points to a key, but I haven’t seemed to hold on to any of the information he’s given me in the past few minutes.. I chew on the inside of my cheek and try not to focus on the fact that I think I can smell the laundry detergent from his sweater. I have to ask him to show me C again, but from there I count up to the note he’s pointing at.

“Yeah, that’s right. Okay, so if I were going down the scale, so backward— what’s this?” He points to a black key.

“D-sharp?”

“I mean, you’re technically right. But it’s actually E-flat.”

“...What?”

“They’re the same thing. You’re right, it’s D raised a half-step, so D-sharp. But it’s also E _lowered_ a half-step. So E-flat. You only call it flat if you’re going down the scale.” He puts his hair behind an ear and clears his throat. 

“I think I understand?” I’m worried that I’m breathing too loudly. He sits up straighter.

“Okay. I’m going to show you chords now, just four. But you can play tons of songs with them.”

He places his hand on the keys, and puts three fingers down, one on G, one on B, and one on D. “This is G-major. A-minor. E-minor, and C-major.” He plays the chords as he speaks. My heart pounds. “Do you want to try?” It’s hard to believe that human hands could sweat this much.

“Uh—,”

“Here, I’ll show you again.” He slowly goes through the chords one more time, but, when I lift my hands, Connor keeps my left hand down. “Only one. Here, like this. He plays the first chord, and says, “Thumb, middle finger, pinky.” His nails are black, not as chipped as they were last Saturday. Who knew someone could have nice hands? I’m painfully aware of my raggedy nails.

I follow his position, placing my hand on the piano, my fingers poised on the keys, and I prepare to press down, but I don’t. Like I’m afraid of what it will sound like. But then Connor puts his hand above mine and pushes down lightly, and the chord rings out.

“See?” 

“Huh,” I say, and then he’s using his hand to lead mine through the four chords. I stare dumbly as our fingers touch. I can’t believe it, how nice he’s being to me. How he puts up with me; I know I’m annoying— the stammering and cheek-biting and knee-bouncing— Jared’s told me before. He’d never do this, never be so kind as to lead my hand with his through what feels like learning a new language. I look up at him, and his eyes are trained on our hands. The room is very, very hot, but it’s okay, because his hands are kind of sweaty too.

“You know, you have piano hands.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your fingers are longer, so it’s easier to stretch to reach the keys. It’s not a skill thing, but it’s kind of great anyway.”

He leads me through the chords again, and then takes his hands away. “Try?”

I play them. I mess up the A-minor chord and he corrects me, and then I can play them right albeit exceptionally slowly. I can’t help the smile on my face. Two weeks ago, I would’ve been sitting through US History. Now, I’m learning the piano with a friend. 

“So, do you have any songs in mind that you want to play? Like, as your endgame.”

I stop, my fingers hovering on the keys. “I haven’t really thought about it, but maybe.” I leave the bench to go to my backpack and grab my phone, but sit back down. Connor plays through a couple of scales.

“There is a song that’s piano, but I don’t know how hard it is to play—,” I open the browser and search it up. 

His eyes go wide as it plays out. “Oh! This song! What is this from?”

“Just from this show I used to watch when I was younger— but the music is really good…”

“Yeah, I watched it too. With Zoe. It was great.” He smiles, listening to the song. “You’re gonna sing?”

Panic alarms go off in my head. “Oh— no, no— I couldn’t— I don’t—,”

“Relax, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he laughs. “It’s a really beautiful piano song. And yeah, I’m sure we could find a simplified version. I’ll look up the chords.” He takes his phone from the top of the piano and starts searching. “Okay, so you’re going to have to learn how to multitask for this, play different things with two hands.”

“That sounds… difficult.”

“...it is, at first.” He admits. “When I was a kid it frustrated the hell out of me. But you’ll get it. You don’t have a piano at home, do you?”

I shake my head, wondering how I’ll practice. It’s not like I can spend every US History class here.

“Well, I have a piano at my house. If you want, you could practice there after school on whatever day.”

“Your parents won’t mind me using it?”

He makes a _pssh_ sound. “No. I bet Cynthia—my mom—would be thrilled that someone is using it for once. And even more thrilled that I’m having someone over. But be prepared, because she’ll probably want you to stay for dinner, and she’s been making a lot of, like, healthy stuff lately. Weird substitutes for gluten.”

“That’s fine.” I look back down at the piano. “I can’t believe I’m really going to learn piano. That’s like, that’s so cool.”

“Yeah. It’ll be cool.” He agrees, and we look at each other for a second, close on the piano bench, before I look back at the piano and wonder how I’m ever going to learn how to play the way he did. So freely. He knew exactly what he was doing, centered and skilled. I pop my knuckles, willing to give optimism a chance.

\--

“Can either of you define the verb ‘abate _’_ for me?”

Second period Environmental Science was hard to focus on, and I’d spent most of it staring out of the window and watching as the rain slowed to a trickle, though the clouds still hung dense and grey. The patio is chilly, though mostly dry, and Alana sits across from Connor and I in a collared black sweater, the _Barron’s_ textbook in front of her.

Connor blows on his cup of noodles, steam drifting in the cold, and rolls his eyes. “Could it possibly be ‘to annoy the fuck out of me’?”

She gives him a lukewarm look and sighs. “It means to lose intensity or amount. To become less in those standards. Anyways, I’m going to be giving you SAT words of the day every day at lunch. What you _should_ try to do is use those words in a sentence at least once in a day.”

“How do you use ‘abate’ in a natural sentence?”

“What if you don’t have to say it aloud. Does just thinking about it count?” I ask, leaning on my elbows. 

“Sure. Oh, and Evan, I need your phone number. So that I can update you about study stuff.”

“Okay.” She passes me her phone and I type it in, checking it twice to make sure that It’s the right number.

“We’re taking our SAT on January fourteenth, so you’ll have to be ready by then.”

“Well, happy birthday to me,” says Connor.

“That’s your birthday?” I ask.

“The day before. January 13th.”

“You’re turning seventeen?”

“Eighteen.” I must have a surprised expression on my face because he quickly explains, “I was held back in the sixth grade? So, for half of the school year, I’m always the oldest one in the class.”

“Oh. Happy birthday,” Evan says stupidly, but Connor just laughs.

“Hey! Hey, guys,” Alana interrupts. “Let’s get back on track—,”

Across the patio, the glass doors open and Zoe comes out. Her face is red, and her hair is in a ponytail. She doesn’t have a jacket, and I wonder how she isn’t cold. She sits down next to Alana, and nobody says a word. 

“Hi.” She whispers. “Can I sit here?”

“You okay, Zo?” Connor ventures to ask. His voice is stilted, as if something’s happened between them and they’re not quite back on the same page yet.

Alana puts a hand on her forehead and mutters, “Great,” annoyed to be interrupted yet again.

“I’m fine. I just need to sit somewhere else.”

“You can sit here,” I say softly. She seems upset. Up close, I can read that her shirt says _useless magic_ in gold cursive.

“Hi Evan.”

“What’s going on?”

She rubs a shoulder and shrugs. “Nothing. Just… Reagan told me that it was annoying that I’m always acting so special. She said that I need to have some self-control. Whatever the _fuck_ that means.” She spits the word, scowling. “I said that real self-control was not bashing her face in. She called me a bitch. So I left.”

Connor bristles. “You told me that she wasn’t bothering you anymore.”

“I lied. And don’t say anything about that, because we both know I’m not the only one.” 

He squints. “Do you want me to say something to her?”

“Christ, Connor. No.”

It’s quiet. I look down at my shoes. Having Zoe here suddenly makes me feel as though I need to keep a close eye on every single movement and word. As if I’ll do something wrong.

“Anyways,” Alana picks up, and Connor looks up and makes an annoyed noise. “See how quiet conversation just got? Its intensity _abated_.”

“Got it.”

“So, what’re you guys doing?” Zoe asks, leaning forward from the cold.

“Studying for the SAT,” I say. “Alana’s tutoring us.”

“Oh.” She bites her lip softly, nothing like the damage I've done to the inside of my cheek. “I’m not interrupting, right?”

“Actually—,” 

“You’re not.” Connor cuts Alana off, giving her a look. He turns at me. “Evan, I forgot to ask you earlier. Do you want to come over on Saturday? For piano.”

“That, um, should be fine.” I nod. 

Alana’s eyebrow raises. “You said you were busy on Saturday, so that you couldn’t study.”

“I am busy. I’m hanging out with Evan.” He gives a smug smile and Alana straightens her glasses.

“Oh. Well, here’s a thought. I hate to invite myself, but it might be beneficial if I come over as well. We can work on analyzing paragraphs.”

“Are you just, like, not going to ask mom about this?” Zoe interjects quietly.

“You know that she won’t care.”

“Well, maybe I care.”

“Zoe, you have your band friends over all the time. Don’t start with that.”

A breeze blows through the patio and we all hunch a little closer to the table. Zoe’s face settles into a hard expression and Connor lets out an agitated breath, shoulders lowering.

“Sure, Alana. We can… analyze paragraphs.”

She grins and runs her hands along the book like it's a sacred text. “Brilliant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the technical music-y stuff didn't drag at all. I tried to keep it interesting with some ~tension~  
> The lyrics used are from 'Back to Black' by Amy Winehouse. It is my personal hc that Connor's a fan or her's. Why? Literally no clue.  
> And lastly, I am willing to give one thousand house points (a.k.a. a shoutout, lol) to the person who correctly guesses the song that Evan's learning to play! Comment your answers! I'm planning to reveal it in some future chapter.. so we'll seeee


	8. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor, Evan, Zoe, and Alana make their way downtown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohmygod I literally wrote this through a creative blockkk and it was soo brutalll  
> sorry if it drags a little >m< It's also a little shorter than usual  
> Also lol I don't feel like editing it so if there's a grammatical error here or there, eh.

“Are my hands supposed to hurt this much?” 

“It’s just because the first chord is really weird. But you’ll get used to it.”

Zoe helped me to drag the old keyboard out of the garage earlier, and we got it hooked up to an outlet in the living room. We couldn’t find the stool, so we had to make do with the chair from the dining room that Evan is sitting on now. I’m hovering over him, watching his fingers struggle between stretched-out chords, correcting him every so often as the pale eleven o’clock light tries its best to filter through the closed curtains. 

He stretches his pinky as far out as possible to hit the key, and when he finally pushes down, lets out a relieved sigh.

“Okay, you don’t have to work on those chords all day. Why don’t we do the verse?”

“I don’t know how good it’s going to be. I did watch the video you sent me,” he says, rubbing at his wrists and knuckles sorely. 

“You’re learning surprisingly fast,” I point out, supporting myself with an arm against the back of the kitchen chair. “You haven’t practiced in a couple of days, and you remember the chords I taught you.”

“Well,” he blinks and rubs at the back of his neck. “I used Quizlet. To memorize the chords.”

I feel an amused look cross my face and shake my head. “You studied?”

“I didn’t want to forget!”

“Okay, okay.” I snort a little and roll my shoulders back. “At least I don’t have to reteach anything. We’ll just work on the right hand first. It’s the melody, so.”

He scoots over, and we both cram onto the kitchen chair. Trying to redirect my attention, I place my hands on the keys and play the verse section for him, letting my left hand split the chord into two pieces, and my right hand float onto the melody. The keyboard doesn’t have pedals, and it sounds artificial and plastic, but it’s okay to learn with. He watches, eyebrows upturnt, as if he’s trying to take in all the information at once.

When I finish, I ask him if he wants me to play it once more and he nods vigorously. As I’m running through it, I hear a sound behind me, and Evan turns.

“Oh, hey Zoe.”

“You’re here early! Hi!” She comes up next to him, biting down on an apple. “Do I know this song?” I focus on the notes and try not to hear her humming.

“Maybe. It’s from this show…” Evan says, still watching.

“You know,” I say, lifting my hands. Without the resonance of the pedal, the sound stops abruptly. “It might be easier to focus if it’s just us.”

She chews thoughtfully and, after a moment of Evan and I watching her, she tilts her head and swallows. “Right! Okay. Good choice, whoever chose it. Evan.” She turns and walks away, and I can tell that I’ve kind of embarrassed her, but I look back to the keyboard and chip at my nail polish.

Finally, Evan says, “So?” and I turn to him. 

“Okay. Right hand. It starts as G, B-flat, G…”

He hums along as he presses the keys, letting me guide his hand. When we’ve gone through the entirety of the verse, he’s smiling. “It’s not too bad.”

“It’s not. It’s really easy to catch on to.”

“It’ll probably still take forever to learn though.” He presses on a few of the keys absentmindedly.

I shrug against him and he grins. “It will. But it’ll be worth it.”

We spend the next half-hour drilling the verse. By the end, Zoe’s come back in, pulled back the curtains, and collapsed on the couch, scrolling through her phone. I try to ignore her, but Evan seems kind of on edge. He keeps missing one-note intervals. When he thinks he has it mostly down, we haltingly play through the first verse with me playing the left hand underneath the melody. He messes up quite a bit, saying that he gets nervous whenever he has to play around other people, but I just shrug and say that it’s fine. 

The doorbell rings, and Zoe springs up, leaving her phone behind. “Alana’s here!” She singsongs, and I try not to roll my eyes. 

“I wonder what the word of the day will be.” He says, smirking, lifting his shoulders, and then, seeing my look of absolute disbelief, his playful expression vanishes. “Wha— what?”

“Oh, my god.”

“ _ What?” _

“Were you— Evan Hansen— just  _ sarcastic?” _

“What? No— I—”

I’m laughing, and I might laugh just a little too long, letting him freak out more than necessary before I say, “Relax, I was just… I was just kidding.”

“Oh.” He laughs nervously, and it’s agonizingly endearing. I catch my eyebrows turning up, almost in diffidence, and I look away, messing with the tag on the collar of my shirt. Zoe has come in with Alana, who’s in a modest black dress and has piles of books in her arms.

“Hey, guys,” she says in a way that seems almost like a teacher talking to her students. “How are you?”

“So, what will we be analyzing today? Brown v. Board of Education, the Gettysburg Address, the Bible…”

She crinkles her nose. “Those are all completely different topics.” She asks Zoe if she can sit on the couch, and when she says  _ of course,  _ she sets down the stack of books and smooths her skirt. “No. For analyzing today, I thought we’d work on poetry.”

Evan slumps a little. “...poetry?”

She nods, an intense expression on her face. “Poetry is a tricky subject, you know. It’s so open to interpretation that many times all of the answer choices  _ could be  _ correct. But, of course, only one of them is.”

“Okay, but shouldn’t there only be one poem or so? I’m sure I could just bullshit through it.”

Alana looks as if I’ve just killed a small animal in front of her. Horrified. “Bullshit through it? As if it’s that easy.”

Zoe’s moved to the red armchair next to the couch, and her eyes are ping-ponging through the exchange as if this is one of the most entertaining things she’s witnessed. Alana turns and shrugs a small black backpack off of her back, zipping it open and retrieving a light blue pencil pouch from inside. She takes out three tack-sharp yellow pencils and hands one to both me and Evan. She then selects one of the books from her pile and thumbs to a page.

The strange thing about studying is that it warps the world around you— especially when it’s hard to focus. When I finally look up from the fifth or sixth poem that Alana has handed out, Zoe is upside-down on the armchair in boredom and Evan looks more stressed than he did when I showed him the first chord for his song; his eye is twitching a little in the corner, like he hasn’t gotten enough sleep, and he keeps clearing his throat. Alana has continued on with enthusiasm deserving of an award, really, explaining the correct patterns in interpretation even when it’s visible that Evan and I are half-dead from information overload.  
I groan and roll over from where I’m sprawled out on the ground, and my joints crack. “God, what time is it?”

“Two,” Zoe drawls. She’s gotten occupied with pulling a loose thread on the side of the sofa, her face flushed from the blood rushing to her head. 

“Two o’clock?” Evan sits up, rubs his eyes, and massages absentmindedly at one of his shoulders. 

“Alana, can we be done, please?” I push away the poem at my feet in disgust and take a tired breath.

“Can we go out,” Zoe says blankly.

“What?”

“Can we, like, go out? Please?” She clarifies. “It’s Saturday. And all I’ve done is sit around and watch you read shit. I want to go get coffee, or something”

“It’s over?” Evan asks wistfully, and Alana starts gathering up the papers.

“You guys got through a lot today,” she says. “Seriously. Good job.”

I’m still rolling on the floor. My brain cells are too exhausted to come up with another form of transport. I bump into Zoe where her head is against the front of the chair and she makes an annoyed noise and tries to scoot away. “Coffee?”

“Let’s go downtown,” Zoe suggests, a little more excitement creeping its way into her voice. She sits up and wriggles so that her legs are dangling off of the side of the armchair, her hair in her face. “It’ll be fun. We can go to the cool shops…”

“I don’t have any money,” Evan says, rubbing his eyes again. I wonder if he had trouble sleeping.

“I do.” I push myself up so that I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the chair. “I want coffee. Let’s go downtown.”

“Downtown?” Alana is still packing up her books, a curious look on her face. 

“I’ll drive,” says Zoe, and she throws her legs down so that she nearly whacks me right in the face.

“Fuck!” I hiss at her, and she grins, stretching and standing upright.

“Are you in, Evan?”

“Am I in?” He repeats. 

“He’s in,” I nod, and Zoe walks to the kitchen where she finds a hair tie and pulls her hair into a ponytail.

“Are there any good cafes downtown?” Alana stands and stretches daintily, as if the hours of sitting and reading have barely affected her. “I haven’t actually been.”

“You’ve never been?” Zoe grins and starts pulling her flannel from where it must’ve gotten stuffed between the couch cushions. “It’s amazing. There are all these bookstores and restaurants and thrift stores…”

“It’s basically hipster central,” I explain, and Zoe makes a face and slugs me on the arm.

By the time Evan’s standing and we’ve all gotten our shoes on, Zoe and I run upstairs to grab out wallets; mine’s somewhere deep in the back of my closet. I haven’t used it in ages, not since last summer. It’s a lot harder to buy things when you don’t go out much. There’s still a couple hundred bucks in there from my job at the Half Price Books that I managed to keep for about two months before getting frustrated at the general manager and quitting— not that I’ll spend it all. Zoe’s loaded though. She has a job at an ice cream parlor at the mall, and hoards her money for times like this. I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes back today with a whole new wardrobe.

Alana and Evan are waiting by the door and Zoe calls out “ _ WE’RE GOING OUT, MOM!”  _ at top volume as we all file out of the door and close it behind us before we hear a clear reply. We pile into Zoe’s Bug with Evan and I crowded in the backseat and Alana riding shotgun, which hardly seems fair. I shoot Zoe a look as she holds the door open for Alana and she sticks her tongue out at me, squinting.

We drive along the interstate for about fifteen minutes, the windows rolled down and the alternative station on the radio blaring. It’s noticeable when the suburbs turn into grassland, turn into city, the buildings tall and unblinking, reflective windows sending flashes in the afternoon light, and I can see Alana’s face in the rearview mirror, slowly growing more excited as she takes in the city. Our ears all pop as the elevation increases slightly and Zoe navigates the up-and-down roller-coaster streets.

Parking isn’t as much of a nightmare as it usually is, but I know that the traffic heading back home will be brutal at rush hour. We hop out of the car, parked behind a tattoo parlor on 11th street, and the sun immediately washes down over us in a way that makes me wince and pull off my jacket. The breeze is cool as we walk past comic book shops and karaoke bars and nail salons, feet tapping on the concrete, but standing still in one place for too long is hot and the humidity is still hanging, nearly invisible, but definitely there.

Zoe stops in front of a tiny little cafe with brick walls and holds the door open for us as we step inside, the air conditioning falling over us gratefully.

The atmosphere inside of the coffee shop is gentle and bright at the same time, with mirrors set up along the walls that make the whole building seem larger. There’s only one person ahead of us in line, and Alana leads the way to the counter, Evan’s eyes roving over the extensive menu.

“I don’t really drink coffee,” he says, scratching at his temple.

“I don’t either.” Alana takes her backpack off and pulls out an embroidered wallet. “I think I’m just going to get tea.”

Evan looks to me, and I barely notice, hypnotized by the scent of liquid energy. The largest size is nearly six dollars, but I’m willing to cut my losses. “You don’t have to pay for me,” he says, looking sheepish. “I’m not really sure what to get anyway…”

Zoe, who’s breezed up behind us, smiles behind Evan’s shoulder. “I can order for you, if you want. They have really amazing peach jasmine tea, here.”

He turns, smiles, and I try not to bristle. I need black coffee. Bad. “When’s the last time you’ve been here?” I half-demand, half-wonder aloud.

“Jazz band,” she says, messing with the fabric of her t-shirt. “We came here after playing at the capital.”

“You guys played at the capital?” Evan asks, astonished. “That’s amazing.”

She flushes a little, and I feel my scowl deepen and look away. “Thanks, Evan.”

Alana steps forward and orders a hot (hot, in  _ this  _ weather) earl grey tea, and I feel like I’m stuck in an aggravated silence as she hands the cashier her credit card. When I’ve finally ordered my large iced black coffee-no-cream-no-sugar- _ yes-I’m-sure  _ and I’m sitting down at one of the pink-plastic booths, my mood feels decidedly darker. Evan and Zoe walk over to me and Alana, who’s neatly folding her receipt, and I hand Zoe five dollars for Evan’s drink.

“I’m so happy that you’re seeing the city!” Zoe says cheerily to Alana as she sits down next to her. Evan scoots in next to me and I lean against the wall, trying to ignore his questioning look. The voices of them chatting seems to blur into the background and I focus on the edge of the table. 

A foot bumps into mine, and I glare at Zoe, but she’s not looking in my direction, enraptured in telling some story about jazz band or her stellar grades or something else. Turning to Evan, he tilts his head. His hair falls a little into his eyes, and I try to keep my eyes from darting away as my heart picks up. I shrug at him.

Someone brings our drinks, crunchy ice and sunshine yellow straws, and I take a deep sip of the coffee, letting the bitterness settle over my tongue. Evan and Zoe’s drinks are matching, with little slices of peach in them, and Alana’s cup is fogging up her glasses so that she has to take them off and wipe at them with the hem of her skirt. The conversation still buzzes, unclear, and I shake my head as if to clear it and look out of the window, watching all of the people passing by; walking, or hurriedly rushing past on electric scooters.

At some point, we decide to stand up and continue walking around downtown, and I hold the door open for Evan and Alana as we step back out onto the sidewalk. I look around at the city as we walk, trying to preserve the coffee. The buildings look blue in the light, almost as if they could be from a science-fiction novel; some of them are tall enough that I have to crane my neck back all the way to see them.

“Hey,” says Evan, and I look back to the sidewalk to see that we’ve lagged behind Alana and Zoe, who are still continuing their lively conversation. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

He shrugs. “You just looked kind of upset.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I dismiss him, and he looks away, lips pressed together. An awkward silence starts growing, one that hasn’t really happened between us for a while, and I kick myself for being so short with him. “What do you think of the city?” I ask, trying to revive the conversation as we fall into step.

“It’s loud,” he concedes, laughing. We’re surrounded by the endless rush of cars, the sound of birds, the clicking of high heels. Doors open and close, and people greet each other with smiling faces. In the shadow of one of the buildings, it’s cool and grey. “I don’t come here very often.”

“Well, that answer’s my next question,” I smirk at him, and he smiles back. 

“It’s cool that we’re actually doing the stuff on the bucket list,” he continues.

“Yeah.”

“I sort of just figured that maybe we wouldn’t.” He pulls at the sleeves of his jacket self-consciously. “It’s really nice of you— to teach me piano.”

I take another sip of coffee. “It’s really no problem. It’s nice.”

“It is?”

More than he knows. “Want some?” I hold out the cup of coffee, eager to change the subject, and he looks dubious as he takes it from me, droplets of condensation running down as his fingers touch the side. He gingerly puts the straw in his mouth and takes the tiniest sip, his face crumpling in disgust.

“God,” he says, handing it back. “It’s so bitter.”

My eyebrows raise in protest. “That’s the whole point!” I go to take another sip, and then suddenly realize in a rush of adrenaline that he— we’re drinking from the same straw—

“The point of coffee is to be bitter…? That doesn’t sound right.”

I reach for a smart remark and find none. I busy myself with drinking the coffee for much longer than necessary.

Ahead of us, Alana and Zoe turn into an alcove and wave for us to hurry up before stepping inside.

“What’s this?” Evan says aloud as we cross the distance to where they were, met with a few sets of stone stairs. At the top is a glass double door that, when opened, shows the room, the racks of clothing, the shoes and discarded looking antiques.

“Welcome to my favorite store of all time!” Zoe says with great ceremony, already shuffling through a few clothing racks.

“We’re clothes shopping?” I say flatly. “Zoe—,”

“Come on, Connor, it’ll be fun.”

“We already got coffee at the place you wanted to go. Let’s do something else.”

She frowns. “You’re just jealous.”

I swallow, and force myself to say, “What?”

She walks over to me, eyebrow raised. “You’re just jealous. Every time we’ve thrifted before, I’ve found things, and you never buy anything.”

It’s harder than usual to try and suppress my sigh of relief. “You can’t be serious—,”

There’s a little squeal from somewhere in the clothing racks, and we turn to see Alana holding up a collared button-down shirt. She’s grinning, folding the shirt over her arm, but when she sees us staring, she clears her throat. “...What? It has books printed on it.”

Zoe laughs. “Come on,” she says again, and starts pulling me by the wrist into the racks.

“Oh my god, Zo. I’m not interested—,”

“Look at this!” She interjects, pulling a random shirt from where Alana is standing in the button-down section. “This would look great on you.”

“You didn't even look at it—,”

Zoe shoves the shirt at my chest, a mischievous look on her face. “Just try it on. Please?”

I’m starting to get agitated, and I really don’t want to blow up on her, but she won’t let it go. Evan comes up behind us and looks at Zoe, her hand pressing the shirt to my chest, and me, gritting my teeth.

“Fine,” I spit, crumpling up the shirt. Zoe bats her eyelashes.

The dressing rooms are the kind that are literally just little cubicles with tiny shower rods to keep a curtain in place. There’s no lock, and it’s making me paranoid. The only mirror is against the side, and the lighting is terrible, so that I can barely even tell if it looks good or not. The fact that the shirt fits is a miracle given that Zoe grabbed it at random, though it is tight in the shoulders. It’s white, and printed with tiny gold moths. 

It’s been so long since I’ve seen myself in something other than a t-shirt or a hoodie—or something black, even— that I just kind of stare at the mirror, resigned. I really don’t want to step out of the dressing room. I hate when Zoe’s like this, pushy and inconsiderate. I pick at my thumbnail and find that all of the nail polish is already gone.

I take in a breath and pull my hair back with a rubber band I find in my back pocket, and then I open the curtain, walking over to where Zoe and Alana are pawing through sweaters. “Happy?”

Zoe turns, and her eyebrows raise a little. “Oh, shit, it actually fits.”

“Yeah, it does.” 

“You should get it, Connor. It looks nice!” Says Alana, holding out something black and white striped.

“It’s… something,” I wince. “Can I put it back now?”

Zoe waves me off and I scowl at her, wondering how this day turned out the way it did. I turn to go back to the dressing room and change into the comfort of my black t-shirt, and see Evan, standing in the aisle.

He’s standing there, looking at me, and he has a surprised expression on his face, his eyes wide, his mouth open, just a little. He clears his throat when he sees me. “You found that?”

“It’s not black,” I shrug, trying to make light of it. It doesn't come out like I want it to. Flat. Like soda left out overnight.

“You should still buy it,” he says.

“I… should?”

“It— It looks nice.” 

He looks at me and I look at him and I’m not quite sure what to think, so, to give myself something to do, I search around for the price tag and find it dangling from the elbow. 

And— given the situation— sixty-five dollars doesn’t seem like too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been writing for three hours and I need to go photosynthesize
> 
> and now ladies and gentlemen  
> my interpretation of -so big/so small-  
> *clears throat*  
> ~I told myself to set Ao3 aside...  
> but I saw that notification  
> and I smiled so wide  
> a real live comment in my inbox???  
> Imagine how that made me feel~


	9. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone insanely cool makes an entrance.

_ It’s probably a given to tell you that I’m not really used to having friends. It sounds pathetic writing it down, but it’s true, and that’s what it really was starting to feel like, the stuff with Connor and Zoe and Alana; sitting together at lunch, going downtown and buying iced tea and thrifted sweaters, the world feeling technicolor and real, for once, not like it’s behind a sheet of cellophane. Connor, buying punk-rock vinyl for way too much money and Zoe, strumming her fingers along the strings of every acoustic in that cool instrument shop on 7th street. Having friends. _

_ Things had changed. In a bad way, at first, but then very dramatically towards  _ good. 

_ A bucket list was something that I never could have imagined relating to me before, and the possibility of finally tearing through all of the words and anxiety and fear felt so attainable. I was learning the piano, for one, which was both surprisingly enjoyable and also really painful for some reason. _

_ And then there was Connor, who I had grown closer to than anyone that I’d ever met, I think, other than my mom (That shouldn’t count. That doesn’t count.) and who had grown closer to me. And then there was Connor. It really screwed me up, in a way, thinking back on it now. The confusion of it all. Because there was Zoe, too, and in a sense, I had all of my hope pinned on her, or at least a great portion of it. _

_ I wanted her to be the girl who I could sweep off of her feet. I wanted to let her know how beautiful she was. I wanted her to help me to realize that maybe all of my weird idiosyncrasies, all of the broken bits, didn’t make up who I am.  _

_ And… I think I did get that. No, I definitely did. But before? I had been searching the corners and niches of everyday existence for something to make me feel real. And sometimes we look for all the right things in all of the wrong places. _

  
  


_ \-- _

_ OCTOBER _

_ \-- _

Autumn finally sweeps in during the first week of October. By week three, the climate has fully transitioned to chilly and breezy, and most of the trees have lost at least a third of their leaves. The air is filled with the scent of rain, and walking to school becomes an ordeal to be taken without headphones just because of how satisfying the sound of crunching leaves is.

Fall has always been my favorite season; I’m not quite sure why. Maybe for the same reason that Wednesday is my favorite day of the week, the reason that I love Neapolitan ice cream, the reason that I like the color blue. There is no real reason. It just is that way. 

Or, maybe it’s because of what’s happening in the world during autumn. The days start growing shorter, the wind blows in. Scarves and hats and pumpkin picking (though I’ve never actually gone pumpkin picking, I think the idea still stands). The trees turn a thousand shades of color before they die, but even then, they aren’t really dead. Life is waiting just below the surface.

September passed in a whirlwind of reading projects and notes on the European colonization of America, creative writing assignments that always make me nervous, the kind where I’m afraid of either sounding simple and disingenuous or convoluted to the point of getting sent to the counselor. But it’s always the same: Watership Down was read and finished, APUSH notes were taken and my poems and stories were written, all with no complications beyond that of your average workload.

The winds blew, and the number of paper Starbucks cups increased throughout the school exponentially. Mom took me to Target on one of the rare days she was off, just to get me new sweaters because I don’t have many; the whole situation was brutal— the lines and the dressing rooms and the screaming kids and  _ too many people—  _ but the sentiment was the same, and now I have four new sweaters, one of which has an old diagram about types of trees (!!) on it. I went over to Connor and Zoe’s at the beginning of October and ended up making sugar cookies and watching a scary movie that was incredibly stupid but still gory enough to make me watch with one eye closed.

But, despite all of this, sleep eluded me— I was tired, but as soon as I lay down, it was just out of reach, and when I did sleep… Well. 

I have this dream. 

I’d had it before, but only once or twice, and never enough to make me lose sleep over it. The yellow field, the tree. Racing across the grass with an intention other than what I’d set out to do. I still have it sometimes, but it’s never been so… so  _ wrong _ … as it has been in the past month. Enough to make me wake up in a cold sweat, limbs shaking with the feeling of falling.

Anyways.

Alana, Zoe, and Connor continued to sit with me at lunch for the rest of the month, which was beginning to really set in. The idea that I had friends was new and kind of anxiety-provoking, having to think about all the nuances of conversation and trying not to offend anyone, but, after a few weeks, I settled into a natural rhythm with it. I dropped out of studying for the SAT with Alana, because all of the extra work was starting to make me feel paranoid and doubtful, but other than that, things ran smoothly.

When Jared shows up at the lunch table on Monday, we’re all sitting around talking about time travel. 

“It just doesn’t make sense!” Zoe huffs, smacking a hand on the table. “Why would you ever want to go back in time if there’s any small possibility that you could fuck up the entire timeline? How could anybody be that selfish?”

Connor shrugs. “I don’t think everything is that connected. Like, I understand that some things  _ are _ , like, food webs or whatever. But when it comes down to whether or not you do something exactly the same way in the past, I don’t think it would mess up the timeline _ …” _

“Have you heard of the butterfly effect?” Alana muses, the  _ Barron’s  _ textbook momentarily abandoned. “Or the Bootstrap Paradox. Even better.”

“What?” I ask, chewing on a ham sandwich, and Alana grins giddily, as if she’s excited to finally explain to us something other than grammatical issues when writing an essay.

“Okay. Imagine that someone gave you this amazing poem when you were a kid, and you didn’t read it until you were older. But when you did, it was amazing, like, it changed your life. And you thought,  _ wow, I wish I had known this when I was younger. It would’ve changed my life—  _ and so you engineer a time machine to take the poem back to your younger self.”

“You would build a time machine to deliver a poem…?” Connor asks skeptically and Alana, undeterred, waves him off.

“So you go back in time and give your younger self the poem, and then return to your own time.”

“So, what, now your younger self has the poem, and it changes their life?” 

“Not exactly. Your younger self keeps the poem and grows up without reading it, but when they do, they think,  _ wow, I wish I would’ve known this when I was younger.  _ So they go back in time to give their younger self the poem.”

Zoe looks bewildered. “Wait— what?”

“It begs the question.” Alana takes a bite of pasta salad and raises her eyebrows. “Where did the poem come from? Who wrote it?”

“...I don’t think I follow.”

She sighs a little, thinking of the best way to articulate. “So, if the origin of the poem is from your future self, and you eventually become that future self and deliver the poem back, the origin is missed. You don’t write the poem, because it was delivered to you  _ by you _ . So the poem just travels in a loop through time. Infinitely.”

I usually don’t like discussions like this because they cause me to  _ way  _ overthink normal stuff like breathing and walking, but this is surprisingly interesting to me for some reason. “Could, like, a  _ person  _ be a part of the Bootstrap Paradox?”

Zoe shakes her head incredulously. “Woah, woah, woah, wait, I’m still stuck on poetry—,” 

“We talkin’ Doctor Who?” 

We all look up to acknowledge the voice that’s spoken, and my eyes go wide when I see Jared standing at a table across the way. He grins and puts his hands on his hips, short-sleeved button-down blowing a little in the October wind.

“Jared!” I’m nearly shocked beyond words, and he saunters up to the edge of the table, leaning on it. Zoe pulls a face, confused.

“Miss me?”

“Where have you  _ been _ ?”

“You watch Doctor Who?” Alana asks, inclining her head a little.

Jared lifts his shoulder in a half-shrug and straightens his palm-tree printed collar. “Oh yeah, I dabble.”

“You… dabble?” Connor mutters.

Jared’s backpack is on one shoulder like always; I know he’s trying to look cool— he told me once— but it just comes across as sloppy. He sits down next to Zoe who is caught with a mouthful of lettuce and she gives him another look. “Anyways,” he says, rolling his neck. “Sorry I’ve been gone, Evan. I’ve had to deal with some stuff.”

“Stuff…?” I realize that my mouth is hanging open and close it before he can call me on it.

“Pretty important stuff,” he clarifies. “Bootstrap Paradox-levels-of-important stuff.”

“What the fuck,” Connor groans dryly and Jared looks right at me.

“So. I see that we have some new additions to the table.”

I look around at Zoe, Connor, and Alana, who are anything but new, and I run a hand through my hair, feeling kind of guilty. “I— you know Connor. And Alana. She’s helping us study for the SAT.” I brace myself, pressing my lips together, praying Jared won’t make some comment about what he deems my ‘ _ obsession’.  _ “...and Zoe.”

“Ah! Zoe Murphy,” he says, and Zoe, still chewing on salad, takes in a deeply annoyed breath. “Wow, Evan! You’re really making strides in the _ friendship _ category.”

I whip my head to Connor without meaning to, not really sure of why _ ,  _ and, realizing this, I shrug at him, who’s giving me an odd look. “Oh, yeah, I guess.” I try to take another bite of sandwich but feel frozen under Jared’s stare. He’ll probably say something equally damning and stupid before the end of lunch. Let Zoe know I like her. Then Connor might feel like the only reason I speak to him is just _ that _ — Alana will be all I have left, and I don’t even study with her anymore—

“What’s your favorite episode?” Alana asks, sitting a little straighter. “Mine is  _ In the Forest of the Night…” _

“That one is pretty good,” he says, still messing with his collar. “I liked  _ Blink,  _ though.”

“Everyone likes  _ Blink.” _

“For good reason!”

Zoe, having swallowed her salad, asks, “Jared, you’re one of Evan’s friends?”

“Sure,” he says, distracted, and I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t bring up the family friend/we-only-really-talk-so-that-I-can-get-my-car-insurance thing.

I look down at my shoes. We have next Monday off of school because of Columbus Day weekend, and because my mom will still be working, I figured that I could ask everyone today about coming over and helping me paint my walls. I’d already talked to mom about it, and she’d practically glowed when I brought up the fact that I’d have friends over, going as far as to spend nearly an hour digging through the garage to get all of the old paint rollers out. I’ve been kind of steeling myself to ask all day, trying to forget about the nervousness, really giving it way too much thought, per usual. But with Jared here, I’m tempted to just forget about it. He’ll probably just call me stupid and make the whole thing seem pathetic. I bite the inside of my cheek and Jared and Alana talk about the Bootstrap Paradox, and Connor looks at me.

_ Everything okay?  _ I can imagine him saying.

_ Fine, except that now I can’t ask what I’ve been building myself up to ask all day. _

I mistakenly clear my throat and everyone turns their head to me. Connor nods a little, probably about something else. “Um,” I say, feeling sweat break out across my back. “You know, this weekend is Columbus Day weekend, and we have Monday off. I was— I was wondering if you guys could help me— help me paint my walls?”

“Paint your walls...?” Jared’s eyebrow raises, but a look of recognition just passes over Connor’s face.

“For the bucket list?”

“Yeah,” I clarify, trying to keep my eyes trained on the table. Jared is making me too nervous. “I thought, well, my mom is going to be working, or whatever, so I might as well do it now. And I have no idea what I’m doing, so I need help…”

“That actually sounds kind of fun,” Zoe smiles. Her smile is so disarming. It’s easy to let myself relax a little in the presence of it. “I’ve never painted a wall before.”

“It can’t be too different from painting canvas,” Alana shrugs.

Jared takes off his glasses and wipes them on his shirtfront before saying, “Wait, bucket list?”

“Oh,” Connor says. “Evan and I have a bucket list.”

He’s quiet for a moment before saying, “Right, okay,” and going back to wiping his glasses. I bite down harder on my cheek. He probably thinks that I’ve abandoned him, or something. That Connor’s better. And it makes me feel even more guilty when I realize that I  _ do  _ like Connor more. He’s not as… blunt. Harsh? He’s more considerate? There’s not really any making sense of it.

“What about Saturday?” I ask tentatively.

“Actually, can we do it Sunday?” Zoe pipes up. “I have rehearsal.”

Connor squints, looking at her. “Wait, what? You never have rehearsal on Saturdays.”

A moment of silence passes, and Zoe looks incredibly uncomfortable. “...Well, we… may have an outside gig,” she finally says.

“An outside gig?”

She nods, putting her fork down carefully. “One of the Seniors? His… his parents are going out of town at the end of the month, and there’s going to be a huge house party—,”

“A senior,” deadpans Connor. 

She swallows and nods. “He’s paying a few people from the jazz band to learn actual… non-jazz music. To play at the party.”

“He asked you?” There’s an odd look on Connor’s face, and Alana and I look at each other.

“Yes?”

“A senior is paying you to play at his— probably very illegal— house party. On Halloween?”

Zoe bites down on her lip, her face getting red in what looks like anger. Beneath the table, she’s clenching one of her fists. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she seethes. “You can’t keep me from going!”

“Oh, no, no.” Connor waves his hands, laughing, and Zoe’s face goes slack. “Can you get us in, though?”

“What?” She says, and then, “Get you in?”

“Which Senior is it?” 

She thinks for a minute. “Nathan Merrick…?”

“Oh shit,” says Jared. “Really?”

Alana and I are still giving each other questioning looks. “Who’s Nathan Merrick?” Alana asks, and Connor blows out a surprised breath, eyes wide.

“Oh  _ shit,”  _ Jared says again. “You’re going to be rich. How much is he paying you to play?”

“Three-fifty,” she mumbles, and Jared’s jaw goes slack.

“Nathan Merrick is just the richest kid in the city. His parents own the football field. He went to some fancy-ass prep-school Sophomore year and got kicked out for having some undercover drug dealing shit,” Jared says, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“And you want to go to his house?” Alana demands.

“I mean, it wasn’t bad enough to get him arrested, but even if he was, his parents would have paid him out. You’re really playing at one of his parties? His house is a fucking castle. God, I can’t wait to see it…”

“Nobody’s going to see it!” says Zoe. “Jesus Christ, I need to ask…”

Connor nudges me. “Party? Bucket list?”

“This again?” Jared scowls.

I swallow nervously. “So Sunday, then?”

  
  


\--

  
  


Mom decided to pick up an extra shift on Sunday morning, so Jared’s the one who picks me up to head to the Home Depot, his dad’s dingy little sedan pulling up to the house.

Connor had texted me and offered to drive me, but Jared had texted too, and he’d seemed kind of dejected for the past week at lunch, so I’d accepted his offer and told Connor that we’d meet him and Zoe there. 

“Does anyone else need a ride?” He asks as I climb in, the heater thankfully on full blast against the chilly breeze. “Alana?”

“No. She’s not coming until later.”

He nods as I pull on my seat belt and hands me his phone, asking me to put some music on. The car pulls into the street, and I squint at the phone screen, not quite sure what’s acceptable to Jared’s standards, eventually resolving to shuffle one of the playlists that he has saved— Best of Broadway— and hoping, indeed, for the best.

Jared turns the music up and crinkles his nose. “Ugh. Is this Hamilton?”

“I just shuffled a playlist,” I shrug at him, and he grabs the phone back from me.

“It’s like it’s trying to trick me into learning history,” he chokes out. “Like cooking vegetables into cupcakes, or whatever.” He looks down at his phone, and my heart raises in my throat.

“Jared, look at the road!”

“We’re at a stop sign.” He gives me a disbelieving look as he hits a button and another song starts playing. The phone screen goes black and he sets it in the cup holder, hands up. “See? All good.”

There’s a silence as the music plays and we drive along, and I swallow, trying to shove down the buzzing that’s knotted in my chest. “So, where  _ have  _ you been?”

He lets out a laugh. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” He takes a sharp turn, and, seeing my face, shakes his head vigorously. “No. Seriously. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“So, the Murphy’s, huh?”

“And Alana,” I point out, though it’s beyond the point.

“How did that happen?” He wiggles his eyebrows. “You going to make a move on Zoe?”

My face blazes up and I look out the window. “I don’t like Zoe.”

“No?”

I hesitate. “No.”

“I mean, I don’t blame you,” he says. “She’s hot. Really hot. I can’t imagine—,”

“Jared,” I cut him off, my voice breaking a little bit. My ears are hot. “Stop.”

There’s another silence, allowing the music to puncture through. And then, Jared says, a little softer. “I saw your cast. Do you want me to sign it?”

I blink. “...Sign it?”

“I mean, if there’s any room left. Fuck.” He looks balefully at the black letters of  _ CONNOR  _ occupying the space. 

“You can,” I finally say, “If you want— you don’t have to—,”

“I know,” he interjects. “It’s fine. I’ll do it at the store.”

He asks me how I broke it, making some comment that I’d rather soon forget, and when I tell him about the tree, he laughs and calls me an acorn. It’s clear that I’m never living that one down. 

When we pull up to the Home Depot, Connor and Zoe are already waiting outside. As we climb out of the car, Zoe walks up, grinning, her brother behind her.

“Hi Evan!”

“Hey guys,” I say, and Jared locks the car with a beep. 

Connor crosses his arms as we start walking, heading towards the doors. “Do you know what color you want?”

I’d thought about this, but not a lot. I keep flipping between choices, worried that I’ll end up hating it later, knowing that I’ll be stuck with that color for the rest of the time before I move out. I wince. “I’m not really sure. I was hoping that I could find the color I want when I actually see it.” I crinkle the money that mom gave me in my back pocket, my hands searching for something to fidget with. 

We step into the giant warehouse, which for some reason still has the air conditioning running even though it’s cold outside. Zoe leads the way to the paint section, her ponytail bouncing, with Jared trailing in the back, tapping on his phone. We come to a huge aisle filled with what seems like thousands of colored paint samples, and I take a deep breath.

“Wow. Okay.”

“It won’t be too bad,” Zoe says cheerily. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Well, it’s blue,” I start, scratching at the back of my neck. “But I’ve read these articles that say that blue can make you feel depressed—,”

“Or, it can have a calming effect,” she says, walking over to a display and picking out a few shades. “Right?”

“I guess…”

“How about this,” Jared says, the phone away. “Why don’t you just pick colors that you like, and then narrow it down?”

“If you want to be here for a thousand years, sure,” shrugs Connor.

“I should’ve figured it out beforehand.” I bite down on my cheek and look at the endless possibilities. “I’m sor—,”

“Look. We can rule out pink and purple, right?”

I nod, and Zoe walks past their displays. “What about red, or orange?”

“I want a lighter color,” I say. “Something pastel. I don’t want to have, like, a bright orange room…”

“Okay. So pastel yellow, or blue, or green. That makes it easier.”

“Well, I don’t know about you,” says Jared, “But I’m going to go to the lighting section.”

“The lighting section?” asks Connor, and Jared nods sagely. He salutes and walks off, and Connor shakes his head in confusion.

“He is so strange,” Zoe says blankly, and I can’t help but agree before we get back on task. We spend the next twenty minutes going through the cards of colors that I like and picking them out, until I’m left with a minty shade, a light yellow one, and a linen-blue color. I scrunch up my face. 

“I’m trying to imagine what it’ll look like in my room.”

“I like the yellow,” says Zoe, and Connor comes up behind my shoulder to see. 

“It’ll look good with the curtains,” he points out, and I tilt my head.

“Yeah?”

“I think so.”

The idea is becoming more and more appealing, and I turn the little card over, reading the title,  _ meringue,  _ and its recommendations for rooms. It’s a good color. It’s mellow enough not to stress me out over choosing the wrong color, and it’s light, so it would be easy to paint over if it turns out that this is all a relapse in decision making.

“Okay,” I say, and smile. “Let’s get it.”

Zoe cheers and we walk off to grab the paint cans, snagging Jared from wandering among the lamps and ceiling fans before we leave. Back at the house, we’re able to clear out my room— pile most of the predominant furniture in the center so that the walls are accessible— in a relatively short amount of time, and a doorbell ring from downstairs announces Alana’s arrival. She comes in with a bundle of aprons in her hands, and when she enters my room, Connor lifts a brow. 

“What are those for?”

She sets them down and rolls up her sleeves. “You don’t want paint on your clothes, right?”

“I don’t think—,” Connor starts, but Zoe’s already stepped over to them and pulled out an indigo-blue apron.

“Your parents won’t care if we get paint on them?” She asks, looking at the stitching along the edges, but Alana just shakes her head. 

“Nah, we have a lot of them.”

Jared steps over a pile of books and picks one up, letting it unfurl in front of him to reveal big block letters stating  _ ONE HOT MAMA!  _ Alana blushes and picks up a sunflower printed apron. “They’re my dads’,” she explains. “It’s an inside joke. Because they’re both men—,”

“I got it,” Jared says, shrugging and pulling it over his head.

“Do you care if I play music?” Zoe asks, taking down her ponytail to redo it. “I brought a mini speaker.”

“Really?” I smile at her, try to ignore the feeling in my chest at seeing her, her lemon-yellow tennis shoes, the jeans, Sharpied stars on the cuffs. “Yeah, of course.”

Connor cracks open one of the paint cans and I walk to lift open the windows, hoping to downplay the toxic smell. 

“I hope this won’t take too long,” Jared says, pulling on a roll of masking tape with a  _ thhhwip.  _

“Probably a few hours at the least,” Alana says, tying her apron in the back and picking up a roll of tape. 

“I have drinks and stuff downstairs,” I say, letting the window lock into place. “Sodas.”

“Cool,” says Jared, muffled, ripping at the tape with his teeth. Zoe’s crouched with her phone by the bluetooth speaker in the corner, and when she connects it, she sets it down and stretches. 

“We better get started, right?”

As the day bleeds into afternoon and the sunlight falls thickly through the window, we make serious progress, first laying down masking tape along all of the baseboards, and then rolling the pastel lemon-colored paint onto the grey walls. The music plays, first songs by Queen, and then Bob Marley, and then a band I’m not too familiar with, Zoe singing along—  _ When the moon fell in love with the sun, all was golden in the sky… _

We go downstairs once to get water and a bag of Cheetos from the back of the pantry, but by the time we really are done, it’s almost five o’clock. Connor sighs in relief, the paint smell stifling, and Jared pumps his fists in tired achievement. Zoe somehow has gotten a streak of paint across her nose, and it’s really sweet and I try my best not to look too long at it.

“That… was something,” Connor says. 

“I can’t believe we did it.” I step back and look at the room in its entirety; the color is perfect really. I can’t stop smiling.

Jared’s sat down and pulled the  _ ONE HOT MAMA!  _ apron over him like a blanket. “God, you owe me, Ev. That’s six hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

Alana sits down as well, wiping at her forehead with the back of a pale yellow-streaked wrist. “I had fun! I’ve never painted a wall before.”

“I just had an idea,” Zoe says, and looks to me. “Evan, do you have any acrylic paint?”

“Acrylic?”

“Like, craft paint.”

“Oh, yeah, downstairs. Why?”

She’s grinning, her face shining in the golden light. “We should… don’t make fun of me. We should put our fingerprints, like, near one of the baseboards.”

Connor groans. “That’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever fucking heard.”

“That’s so sweet!” Alana says. “What do you think, Evan?”

I look at them, look at their smiling faces, the fact that I have  _ friends  _ sitting with me in my room, friends who just devoted a day to painting my walls. I smile back. “I’ll go get it.”

I head toward the door, and Jared calls down to get a Sharpie too, and when I’m back upstairs with the marker and the gold acrylic paint, we pour some onto a little paper plate and stick our thumbs in it, marking them just along the baseboard at the door.

“This is so fucking stupid,” Connor says, but he’s laughing as he does it, and he presses his thumb just next to mine, and I can’t help thinking that I haven’t been this happy in a really long time. I give the Sharpie to Jared, and he takes hold of the cast, signing his name in the first _O,_ despite Connor’s judging squint. And then Zoe insists, and Alana, too, and the cast is paint-streaked and now has four names on it and the gratefulness welling in my chest makes me feel warm and wistful.

Alana finishes her cursive  _ A  _ and caps the marker, handing it back to me. “I don’t want to sound pushy,” she says, “But now that we’re done here, it would be the perfect time to get some studying done! Connor, do you want to go to a Starbucks or something to work on algebra?”

“Oh, my god,  _ now?” _

She shrugs. “It’s a good a time as any.”

“Can I come?” I ask. “I understand if I can’t— I know I’m not studying with you anymore—,”

“Sure, Evan,” Alana beams. “As long as you’re not a distraction, it should be fine.”

“I won’t be.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Connor smirks, but I’m too focused on the idea that  _ I have friends I have friends I have friends,  _ each thought more emphatic than the last, that I barely hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They all deserve happiness~  
> Please consider leaving a kudos or commenting! Where do you think this story's heading?  
> Lyrics are from 'When the Day Met the Night' Panic! at the Disco
> 
> Edit 5/18/2020:
> 
> Hey! So I'm going to take a break from my posting schedule for about a week because it's Finals Week™ — which is funny because I technically have one (1) final — but I'll be back and I'll continue posting on Wednesday and Sundays weekly! I'll also still be probably posting lil oneshots and stuff here and there. Hope everyone is doing well in this era of PLAGUE
> 
> btw you should check out There Is No End In Sight for Us it's a cute little baby of a fic that I posted yesterday that I may or may not write into an actual story


	10. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gang goes to a Halloween Party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back? C'est moi! Yes, I know that technically, Connor's POV chapter should come next, but due to some issues regarding story pacing I just had to double up on Evan >o<

\--

NOVEMBER

\--

It must be a hassle to plan a Halloween party when Halloween is on a weeknight.

The week leading up to tonight has been tense for no reason. Everyone else seems to be doing fine, but I feel like I have springs coiled beneath my skin, and they keep getting tighter and tighter. Worrying about what’s going to happen when they snap is only making it worse.

Halloween is on Thursday, but the party that Zoe got us all into is on Friday. After serious thought, I’ve assumed that no, people probably aren’t going to be in costume, because it’s not even Halloween anymore. But the relief that I won’t have to dress up doesn't make it any easier. Since school let out for the day, I’ve been sitting in my room and thinking. Connor’s picking me up at seven, which is far enough away to not be in full-blown panic mode, and enough time to make a list.

The listing thing is an alternative to the letter writing thing that my therapist originally pitched to me. I’d stopped after they’d gotten dark, and not in a therapeutic way. So she’d suggested lists, because they’re impersonal, organized, and easier to follow the thread of a thought into when writing.

I pick up a pencil from underneath my desk and grab my Pre-Calc homework, flipping it to the back where it’s blank.

_Reasons why I’m nervous about this party_

_1\. Should I change? People probably aren’t going to be in costume because it’s not Halloween anymore, but should I change into something different than what I wore to school today? If I don’t, will the others think I’m sloppy? If I do, what if they think I’m trying too hard? Or what if I just changed my shirt? Is it a casual party? Apparently the guy is super rich. Should I dress nicer?_

_2\. There’s probably going to be alcohol and drugs. But that’s fine, because I don’t smoke drugs or anything but what if I get peer pressured? I think I’d be able to say no now but in the moment what if I freak out and end up getting addicted to crack?? But people probably won’t pressure me because they don’t even know me. And Connor wouldn’t pressure me. I don’t think. No, he wouldn’t._

_3\. I hate this because I don’t even know anybody anyway, and I’m just going to stand there and Jared’s probably going to disappear somewhere and I’ll get surrounded by all of these people and if I leave I’ll be lame, and Connor will think I ditched him and I’ll never have a chance with Zoe_

_4\. Zoe._

I stop. Refuse the urge to read the pathetic stream of consciousness that I’ve poured onto the page. And then I realize that I’ve written it on my math homework, and I’m going to have to turn it in, and even if I erase it, the teacher’s going to be able to see the faded letters, and then she’ll think I’m going to illegal parties and—

No. We don’t even have to turn in the homework page usually, just our work. I grit my teeth and wonder why I didn’t just say _no_ to the party. 

It’s five fifty. 

I start over debating whether or not I should change my shirt.

\--

When I step out of the house and into the chilly dusk, I see Connor’s face through the car door window and freeze.

He has face paint on, this really cool skeleton makeup where he’s put black paint around his eyes and his nose, and his hand that’s gripping the wheel has one of those fingerless gloves with the glow-in-the-dark bones printed on it.

He’s in a costume.

He smiles when he sees me, and then gives me a bemused look as I open the car door and slide into the seat, dread coiling even tighter in my chest. I’d decided to change my shirt, to wear the one from the trip mom and I took to Wyoming, with _Yellowstone National Park_ in big white letters and the illustration of the mountains and trees on the front. Same jeans, same shoes. Not a costume.

“Not dressed up and somewhere to go?”

“I didn’t realize that I was supposed to wear a costume,” I say, letting my head fall back against the seat. _Of course something like this would happen!_ “I thought—because Halloween was yesterday…”

He shrugs. We haven’t pulled out into the street yet, and the cabin light is starting to get dimmer, fading. “It’s no big deal. Zoe and I just got dressed up because she said that Nathan told the band to wear costumes.”

I pull the seat belt on and try to take a deep breath. Try to forget the list. It’s fine. It’s just a party, and we probably won’t even be there for that long. “This is so dumb,” I say, and the only way I can tell that I said it out loud is because Connor laughs and says, “Isn’t that the truth.”

“Sorry,” I amend, then shake my head when he opens his mouth to say that it’s fine. “I’m just… this is really out of my comfort zone. Like, like _polar regions_ out of my comfort zone. I’m not really… a people person. It’s kind of exhausting, really. Not that _you’re_ exhausting, that’s not what I mean—or Zoe, or Alana, or Jared—Well—I just mean—,’

“Evan,” he cuts in, softly, and I stop, letting out the breath that’s been building up in my chest. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not a people person either, or whatever. We’re just going to support Zoe.”

He looks at me, and he looks so earnest, even with the skeleton face paint, that I can’t help but feel the tension ebb away, just a tiny bit. “Right. For Zoe.”

“And about the costume. I got you covered. Look at me?” 

Confused, I look at him, and then, before I can process what’s happening, he pushes one of his thumbs through the black face paint on his cheek and then rubs it across my nose. He leans back and grins. “We’ll get you some whiskers when we get there, okay?”

I nod stupidly, but he’s already turned away and is accelerating and turning onto the street.

The directions that Zoe sent him won’t load on Google Maps, and when they finally do, the house that the party is at is nearly a half hour away and secluded in the downtown area.

“If he lives this far away, how does he go to our school?” I ask absentmindedly as Connor pulls the car in to parallel park next to some others. The street outside of the house is packed with cars; it’s not what you’d expect to see outside of what looks like the child of an illustrious log cabin and a marble palace. 

He kills the engine once he’s satisfied with the park job and rolls up the sleeves of his black sweatshirt. His hair is up and out of his face, and in the dark, he looks ghostly with the white makeup marking the only visible planes on his face, the black outlining the sharpness of his cheekbones and jawline. I pull down the sun visor to see myself in the little mirror there; the paint on my nose is hopelessly messy, and looks less like a cat nose than a careless smear of engine grease.

“The school has a really good academics program?” He says, not sounding sure. “Or it could just be because he has family on the PTO.”

We both get out of the car and, as I see the house, the nervous energy that had started to melt away suddenly coils back, denser than before. The noise emanating from the house is deafening; pounding music and laughing. I look over to see that Connor is next to me. “I guess Zoe and the band are still setting up.”

I don’t say anything. My mouth has gone kind of dry.

Connor doesn’t say anything on it, either. He just pushes on with, “Well, we might as well go meet her, yeah?”

I nod. He holds his arm out to me, as if to link it, and without even thinking, I interlock my elbow with his and we start walking up the drive.

The house is incredible. It’s one of the biggest spaces that someone actually _lives in_ that I’ve ever seen; there’s a huge foyer, with two staircases leading up to a second story, and there are people mingling with red solo cups, all in costume. Through an entryway to the left, there’s a huge room with couches, and a pretty big set up where Zoe is standing with what I can recognize as some of the other jazz band members.

She smiles so widely when she sees us, bright and lovely and real, and I try to let some of the nervousness fall away. Try to just focus on Zoe. She’s wearing a silver pleated skirt, and this shimmery, sheer tank top that I’ve seen her wear sometimes. Her and Connor must’ve shared the face paint set, because she’s got it on too, a red and blue lightning bolt across the left side of her face like David Bowie.

“Hi guys!” She beams, and Connor smiles. 

“Hey. Cool set up. Is anyone else here yet?”

“Alana’s here right over here—there she is. _Hey! Alana!”_

Both Connor and I turn in the direction that Zoe is calling out, and my mouth drops open when I see her… in a huge pink dress. 

“Hi Connor, Evan,” she says, and smiles the least uptight smile that I’ve ever seen from her.

“Your costume is awesome,” I say, even if I don’t know what she’s supposed to be. I haven’t even seen her so dressed up before. She’s really pretty—not that I like her, that’s not what I mean. But it’s certainly endearing. Her dress is almost metallic looking, and her hair is down for once, surprisingly long.

She nods and looks down at herself. “Thanks. My dad made it. He makes costumes for the theater downtown.”

“Seriously? That’s so cool!” It’s clear that Zoe’s incredibly happy in this moment. She’s practically glowing. 

Then, coming up from behind us— “There you guys all are.”

Jared’s face is painted like it’s spirit week; he has two streaks of gold paint under each eye and _C!_ written on his cheek. He’s holding a black and gold pom-pom in each hand, and his shirt is obviously hand-drawn, an old-looking white one with _GO CEILINGS!_ in lopsided paint pen.

“Are you a cheerleader?” I can hear the disbelief in my voice and try to keep from laughing. Jared gets offended kind of easily. 

“Close. Yeah, pretty much.” He waves the pom-poms. “I’m a ceiling fan. Get it?”

“Ha,” Connor deadpans, and this makes Zoe laugh so that she almost loses her balance on the little stage area and has to catch herself with a hand. 

Jared fixates on Alana. “So, what are you? A Disney princess?”

She gives him a look that has ten times more sass than usual. “Angelica Schuyler. From Hamilton.”

He thinks about it for a fraction of a second too long before saying, “Oh. That’s cool.” He sounds half-hearted, but like he’s trying. He’s also refusing eye contact. Connor and I catch each other’s eyes and exchange a look. “Well. You look nice.”

“Thank you.” She curtsies and they both laugh, except hers is full and self-assured and his is awkward beyond the realms of imagination. He turns to me, as if he’s trying to end the conversation, and says, “And what are you supposed to be? A grease monkey?”

“He’s a cat?” Connor offers. “We were going to give him whiskers once we got over here. Do you still have the face paint, Zoe?”

She frowns. “No, I left it at home.” They both think for a moment; it’s visible on their faces. You don’t really realize how much they _do_ seem related until they’re right next to each other, following the same train of thought. “Oh!” Zoe says, and picks up a thick black sharpie from where it’s laying on the set list. “We can use this.”

I cringe. “Permanent marker…?”

“Do you have any idea how toxic that is?” Alana says, crossing her arms, and Connor takes the pen from Zoe.

“If you’re lucky, it’ll get you high,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not as he uncaps it and points it at my cheek.

“Wait a minute,” I start, “I don’t—,”

“Shut up, Connor.” Zoe leans over and pushes him on the shoulder, nearly falling off of the stage space again, and then says, “He’s just kidding. It’ll be fine, Ev. Sure, it won’t come off for a day or so but it’s not like it’s going to give you some terminal illness.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t want Sharpie on my face,” Jared shrugs. “But… without it, you do look kind of… like a repair man.”

“Seriously, Evan, it’ll be fine. Do you trust me?” Connor asks.

“I mean—,”

Alana shakes her head. “You guys are crazy.”

I take in the people around me; Jared, dressed like a literal cheerleader; Connor, who’s found an acceptable excuse to wear black again; Zoe and Alana, who both are just so _happy._ “You know what?” I say, and the voice doesn’t even feel like it’s coming from me. “Just do it before I change my mind.”

They all cheer and Connor comes closer and rests the side of his hand on my cheek. He must be one of those people that has to draw and write with his hand touching the surface of whatever he’s writing on—I’m like that too. It’s impossible to draw a detailed pencil sketch without getting graphite dust smeared all over the page. The pen drags across my skin and I resist the urge to flinch as all of the regret comes rushing in.

When the whiskers are done, he caps the Sharpie and steps back to admire his work. “Not bad, not bad,” he says, tossing the marker in Zoe’s direction. “Good idea.”

“Oh, god,” I say, and Jared laughs. “Does it look bad?”

“It looks like you have Sharpie whiskers on your face,” he replies. “So, maybe an in-between?”

“It looks fine, Ev,” Zoe says, but is interrupted by someone shouting from behind her.

“Hey, guitar? I’m going to need you to stop chit-chatting and start running your sound check with the others, alright?”

Connor bristles, I can feel him next to me. But Zoe just sighs with a _what-can-you-do?_ look on her face and shrugs. “Strictly scheduled. What can I say? Guess I should go.” She stands up and picks her guitar off of the stand next to her. It looks like an acoustic, but somehow is still plugged into a nearby amp. “Thanks for coming to see me!” She turns, and messes with some of the dials on the speaker. “I know that I wasn’t going to really invite you originally, but I’m glad you came.”

Alana puts her hands on her hips. “Of course!”

“Alright, I’m going to go have a smoke,” says Connor, who starts heading toward a glass door, through which I can see a spacious backyard and a pool filled to the brim with people, despite the weather. 

While I’d been talking to them, the nerves had retreated to the edges, but I can feel them creeping as he starts walking away, slithering back. “Wait—,” I get out, not quite sure what I’m going to say, and then stop. Who am I to tag along? I don’t want to seem annoying…

I spin back around to find Jared, but he’s already gone; I catch a glimpse of him talking to Alana at the table with food on it, punch and candy and expensive looking food. I bite on my cheek. Zoe’s turned away, busy with her guitar, and Connor’s almost out the door.

I run to catch up, and when he sees me, he smiles as if he was hoping that I would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all of these characters so much. They're so fun to write <3  
> Make sure to leave a kudos or a ~comment~ to show your love, and subscribe to either this story or my account to be notified on whenever I update or post a new story! And if you like what you see here, you should check out the Superpowers au one-shot collection I have as well!
> 
> Thanks for being awesome~


	11. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get kind of intense in this chapter. There're no references to suicide or self harm or anything, but it is really emotionally charged, so please read only if you're in the right headspace to!

Sure, the party is a  _ party  _ in the sense of the word. There are people. There is music (Zoe and the band’s still setting up, so it’s just painfully loud EDM for now), and there’s dancing. 

The punch is spiked, which, from the few parties that I’ve been to, is pretty par for the course. I have to take the cup Evan ladles for himself out of his hand before he takes a huge drink—he specifically told me he was nervous about being pressured to try alcohol. I told him that he didn’t have to, of course, but no promises for myself.

But it’s surprisingly tame.

Evan and I have passed a few tables outside, and the worst things I’ve seen are the beer cans, and the endless couples making out in corners as if they aren’t in a public area. People are smoking, of course, but from the smell of it, it’s all just normal cigarettes. Nothing that could get anyone high. The pool is full of rich teenagers drinking sodas and beers and floating on inflatable unicorn inner tubes, taking selfies and dunking their friends underwater.

We walk to a less-populated section of the huge backyard, and I take a cigarette out of my pocket.

“I’m not trying to nag, or be annoying, or anything,” says Evan, crossing his bare arms over his chest in a way that makes it painfully obvious that he’s freezing. “But didn’t you say you were trying to quit…?”

I look at him as I  _ flick, flick, flick  _ the lighter and the bright orange flame springs up, and keep looking at him as I guide the cigarette through the fire until it’s caught. I wait to speak until after I’ve taken a drag and blown it behind me, not wanting to puff smoke in his face. “It’s harder than you think, I guess.”

“Oh.” He looks around at the beer cans and couples and inner tubes and runs a hand along the back of his head. The Sharpie whiskers are kind of crooked, marking out his freckles. 

A moment passes, pulsing with muffled dance music, and I amend, “I have been trying. I almost didn’t bring one. But…” I take a breath and close my eyes. “Parties can be difficult. So I kept it in my pocket just in case.”

“You really need it?” He ventures to ask, and I lean back to sit on the stacked pale stones making up the border between the patio and the extensive yard. 

“Not  _ really.  _ I don’t know.”

He comes to sit next to me—he has to do a little hop to get on top of the stones—and sets his right hand behind him, leaning back, keeping his cast cradled against his chest.

“Is that coming off any time soon?” I ask, gesturing toward it, and he looks down, flexing his fingers.

“Next Tuesday, actually. I’m going to be out of school until lunch.”

I whistle low. “Seven, eight weeks, then?”

“Yeah. I’m glad for it to be off. Do you know how hard it is to take a shower with it?”

We laugh a little and watch some girl’s boyfriend kiss her and then trip her into the pool. Seems kind of like a dick move to me.

“Does it hurt anymore?” I ask.

He tilts his head, his hair falling into his eyes so that he has to brush it away. “Not really. Only if I put too much pressure on it by accident.”

“That’s good.” We’re quiet for a while, just looking at all of the people, but the quiet isn’t bad. It’s the kind of silence that’s comfortable. Still. It feels good to have that with him.

I finish the cigarette and stub it out on the stones—Nathan’d probably kill me. Good thing he hasn’t seemed to make an appearance yet. And then we hear the EDM music from inside come to a stop and the feedback of a microphone getting turned up. Evan perks up. “Zoe?” He says, and I give a short nod and pull off the gloves I have on—my hands are sweating and it’s just way too uncomfortable.

We both start heading inside to see her standing on the stage with the other band people—the redhead who I’ve seen on the drums, the Asian kid who plays bass like a god. They’re all upperclassmen, but Zoe doesn’t stick out. If anything, she looks like a natural.

It’s  _ sweltering  _ inside. There are significantly more people than before, now that everyone’s flooded inside to see the band, and from what I can see, there are flasks being passed around. It was only a matter of time.

Jared and Alana are pushing their way through the crowd to us. Poor Alana’s dress… She’s got it hiked up above her knees, cringing in disgust at the dirty floor and the sloshing red solo cups. There’s a footprint on the hem.

“We were wondering if you guys want to go out after this,” Jared shouts above the din of voices. “Like, to IHOP, or something.”

“It can be to celebrate Zoe!” Alana tries fruitlessly to bunch the rosy fabric in her hands, but there’s way too much of it, and Jared has to come around the back to gather all of it up. “This was probably not the best idea.”

“You think?” I say, and Jared laughs.

“Who knew Alana Beck could make questionable decisions?”

She huffs, holding the bundled material close to her thighs. “Yeah, fine. It’s not like you make the best decisions either.”

There’s a dense, ripping guitar chord from the stage, and everyone looks up and cheers as the band starts playing. Merrick’s even hooked up some kind of light show; Zoe’s cast in a lilac colored haze, her eyes closed as her fingers play along the fret board, this small, focused smile on her face.

The crowd gets kind of crazy really fast. There’s lots of jumping and jostling and drinks being spilled, and it’s  _ loud loud loud,  _ especially next to the stage. Zoe keeps making eye contact with the lot of us, grinning as she forms incredibly painful looking hand positions. She’s  _ really good.  _ I knew of course that she plays guitar. I’ve been to enough mandatory family jazz concerts to know. 

But this isn’t jazz music, and she’s no longer limited to a set of chords and a few finger-picking patterns. This music isn’t clean. It’s messy and wild and a lot more like rock music than I expected, and Zoe looks like this is what makes her  _ live.  _

I think the set lasts around an hour and a half. When I check my phone, it’s 10:02 and there’s a text from Cynthia.

**Where are you?**

Oh,  _ shit. _

They’re supposed to be out of town _. Why aren’t they out of town? _ Cynthia knows we sometimes go to parties. She knows what happens at parties. But the only time that I’ve ever come home buzzed, she and Larry were already asleep, so Zoe and I just assume that she thinks that we’re good kids on one front, at least, and don’t drink alcohol or do drugs or kiss strangers.

I guess I should say that Zoe’s better at being a ‘good kid’ than I am.

But if she finds out that we’re not at some neighborhood party… if she finds out that we’re in the city, half an hour away, at the home of some kid who has a reputation of being a dirtbag and is mysteriously absent?

_ Oh, SHIT. _

We need to go, as soon as Zoe’s finished with the set. It’s a disappointment, but necessary. And I need to come up with an alibi.

_ We’re… we’re at the park? No that’s absolutely fucking stupid. And not a good idea given past context, anyway. Umm. Uuhhhhm… We’re with Alana. Late night study session… that might work. Evan’s here too… _

It’s too fucking loud in here. I need to get out. I turn and start pushing my way through people, my texts with Cynthia open, and pretend not to hear Jared screaming “ _ Where are you going!”  _ from behind me. When I finally make it to the screen doors, which are closed, the glass fogged up from heat, I wrench it open and step outside.

The cold air washes over me, and I let out a relieved breath, leaving the door open a crack as I step out into the pretty much abandoned yard. The temperature’s dropped since we were out here last. Not enough to see my breath fogging in front of me, but still…

I make my way to one of the iron tables and sit down, my phone screen in front of me.

Think.  _ Think. _

**Zoe and I are at Alana Beck’s house**

**She’s from school and has straight a’s**

**studying**

**Can’t talk right now**

I send the texts all in quick succession, my lips pressed into a firm line, panic creeping its way through me; I’m hyper focused on the screen, the three blinking grey dots…

“Hey.”

I look up, startled, and am even more shocked when I see Evan. “Hey?” I hadn’t even noticed him leave when we were inside—it was so loud and dark and there were people everywhere. He looks… something’s off. His face is red, but not from the cold, kind of splotchy. His hands are folded on the table in front of him, but they seem unsteady, and I can tell that he’s biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, no, it’s—everything’s fine,” he says, but his voice is less steady than his hands. “It was… really loud. And lots of… people.”

I nod, glance down at the phone. Three blinking dots. “It is way too crowded.” From inside, the music has stopped, and cheering has erupted. The set must be over. A good time to leave. I’m not even focused really on Evan, but I hear it when his breathing catches, and I look up at him.

Something’s definitely wrong. He does not look  _ fine.  _ And than I realize— _ I’m such an absolute fucking idiot— _ what’s wrong, and I feel the guilt rise in my chest. “Oh,” I say, and it’s the only sound that comes out. “You…”

He nods a little. “Panic attack. I’m fine, really though. It wasn’t too bad.” He rubs the back of his neck self consciously and then refolds his hands, picking at his nails. “I was just nervous about this party anyway. It all kind of came to the surface, I guess.”

“Oh,” I say again. I wish I could say something to help him, but I don’t know what. I just feel worried, and guilty for not giving him my full attention. “Are you sure you’re okay, now?” I settle on, because I want to make sure he’s not just saying this to make me not worry, or something.

He nods again. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

“I think we need to leave soon anyway,” I say, and I look back at my phone. The screen has turned black. “Cynthia and Larry apparently came home. They noticed Zoe and I gone.”

“Crap,” he says, and we laugh a little at it because it seems so stupid and not-that-big-of-a-deal-at-all anymore. “Weird,” he continues, tracing a hole in the iron lattice of the table. “Being caught for going to a party is not something that I thought would ever be a problem for me.”

“Your mom knows you're here?”

He shrugs. “She’s at work. I told her I was going to hang out with friends tonight, so… not a lie.”

“Not really a truth either?” We smile at each other, and then I open my phone:

**Home by curfew, please, Connor.**

**And tell Zoe to charge her phone.**

_ Thank god. _

And then we both hear something from inside that turns my blood to ice.

_ “GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!” _

Zoe’s voice.

Evan gives me a panicked look, but I’m already standing and rushing toward the screen door. Inside, it’s a mess of people. The band is off of the stage; Jared and Alana are nowhere in sight. I crane my neck, and then I see a flash of a silvery tank top, and I start pushing my way through the crowd roughly, people crying out in agitation.

“ _ Connor!”  _ I hear Evan shout out, but it’s muffled. There’s a weird rushing sound in my ears.

I see Zoe. There’s a guy—the same fucking guy who talked shit to her earlier—and his hand is around her waist, and Zoe’s teeth are bared, and he looks fucking feral.

“ _ HEY!”  _ I scream. My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore. People turn to look. I don’t care. “ _ WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH MY SISTER?” _

I reach her. Time slows. I walk up to him, and I rip his hand off of Zoe, and I push her away so that I’m staring him down. Disgust and anger rears up in my chest so strongly that I can’t see the world around him, just his face, leering deliberately at her.

“Oh,” he says, and then, “the fucking freak. I was hoping you’d show up.”

“ _ Fuck off,”  _ I spit. I can feel my teeth grind together.

“Now I have a chance to knock you down to your level.” He crosses his arms. “Parties? I don’t think so. Unless you came here looking for your next fix.”

The rushing is so loud in my ears that I barely hear him. My heart is pounding in my throat, and my arms are tingly and numb.

“Rumor is that you spent a week in the loony bin last year,” he spits. “So what’re you going to do? Go psycho on me? You fucking freak.”

_ How does… how does he know about…? _

“Back off so I can give your sister what she wants.”

And now time completely stops. I don’t feel my fingers form into fists. The world slows as I step forward, and then my fist collides with his jawbone and everything suddenly speeds up. There’s a roar from the people around us, and, disoriented, I hear Zoe shout out, “ _ Fuck, Connor, STOP!” _

Something pounds against my nose and I stagger backward, pain flaring in my face. My eyes water up, and I open my mouth to take a ragged breath, tasting blood, but it’s not even important to me because he’s coming again and I rush forward and elbow him across the face, reaching, trying to grab anything, shirt, hair—

His knee hits deep between my ribs and the air rushes out of me until I see spots. Zoe’s screaming, I can hear her voice specifically, though muffled, but there’s something else—

Someone’s hands are on my arm, pulling me away. I whirl around and I see Evan, and his face is panicked. I can tell the exact moment that he sees the blood running down my face. His lips move but I can’t hear him. He’s trying to pull me away—He’s going to get hurt—I’m so  _ stupid  _ for putting him in this position—

“ _ Connor _ ,” he’s saying. “ _ Come on. Please, come—,” _

My fists grab at the shoulders of his shirt and I push him away roughly; he trips, stumbles, falls backwards. “ _ Back the fuck off!”  _ I shout without really meaning to, and I see the look on his face, and everything goes, and the shame and fear and... and when I lift my gaze to the random people around the room, seeing me with my bloody nose and that look in my eyes, their expressions convey everything I need to know. This moment is just more ammunition and proof that I’m a freak and a psycho. 

Evan and I look at each other. His mouth is open in surprise, his eyebrows pushed together. And then he cries out.

I turn and the guy has a pocketknife.

People start shouting. I turn, and Zoe’s hands are covering her face, her shoulders hunched, shaking with tears. 

And then a hand wraps around my arm again, and I’m being pulled away, through the crowd, and they’re parting for us, their eyes alight in terror. The moment has passed. The anger starts ebbing away and I just feel dizzy and tired, and I lift my head and it’s Evan, an odd expression on his face. I swipe a hand against my nose and wince, and the skin of my palm is bright red with blood. Zoe’s following until we’re in the foyer and through the front doors, and Evan is just pulling me by the arm, and his breathing is heavy and I’m barely breathing at all.

I don’t say anything as we climb into my car. Jared’s in the driver’s seat—Zoe must've given him her set of keys—and there’s a white car right behind mine that must be Alana waiting to follow. He opens the door, and Zoe slides into the passenger seat, and then Evan pulls me into the back and slams the door and crumples against the opposite inner door, leaning away from me. Turned away from me. His face is in his hands.

Jared drives, and the tears that have finally broken out of me won’t stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Woah.  
> Cliffhangers? Obviously! Hope you don't hate me too much :)


	12. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are little more clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick announcement: I just wanted to say in light of everything that is going down with protesting and etc. in the States—my heart goes out to all of you who are feeling unstable, afraid, or questioning in this time of change, and I hope that my writing can provide for you just a little bit of relief if you are stressed or upset, or so on. 2020 has definitely been a really rough year, but hopefully all of us can learn to grow and adapt individually during this crazy time. I know personally, this quarantine has really taught me to rely on myself for my own happiness, as well as write sooo much more, and, to the many of you struggling with keeping a positive mindset in the midst of what feels like the world cracking apart, I hope that something as simple as sitting down to read fanfiction can make you happier, at least for a moment! Keep your grit, follow through. It just takes a little patience, a little time, a little perseverance, and a LOT of musical theatre references.  
> So please keep in mind that, wherever you are in the world and whatever struggles you're going through, I'm rooting for you! <3 And happy Pride Month, too!

It’s easy enough to realize that I’ve gotten caught in a loop. It’s not like it’s some abstract concept. I’ve been there before. Too many times, really.

It’s dead silent in the car, and dark, the only real source of light being Alana’s headlights from behind us. I’m curled against the left side of the back seat, my arms crossed, the cast digging into my chest. My head is turned out of the window, trying to hide my face, and I’m trying not to think, trying not to think, trying not to think.

_ Back the fuck off! _

The look in Connor’s eyes had been different than I’d ever seen before. It was something so deeply broken that it makes my chest twist itself into knots just thinking about it. I can still feel it; his hands, twisting into the fabric of my shirt and shoving me backwards with enough force to knock me off of my feet. I hadn’t fallen on my cast hand. Luckily. 

Maybe it’s good that the stupid cast will be off on Tuesday. I won’t have to see his name every time I look down, and maybe then I can forget about this whole thing and try to pretend that it never happened. Forget about the mistake that I’ve made by putting myself in this situation.

I was just trying to help. But isn’t that how it works out? It’s always just me trying to help when things go wrong. I’m always screwing up the things I have because I feel like it’s my responsibility to make things right when maybe I should just _let_ things be wrong.

Like with my parents. How dad didn’t want a broken son. And I’d tried so hard to be who he wanted me to be. Look how that turned out.

But I’d seen Connor. I’d seen his face; his fear for Zoe, his anger at the person who’d been so careless with her. I’d seen the way people looked at him: with recognition. It makes me sick to realize that that’s exactly how  _ I’d _ looked at him before I’ve gotten to know him, too.

And it’d taken so much to step in and intervene. Because everyone was watching, and it was loud, and every cell of my body was screaming at me to  _ run run run _ but I’d stepped in, stepped right into that spotlight, that line of fire, because I didn’t want to see him hurt.

Because he’s so important to me.

Realizing this makes me feel so much worse because I know that he clearly doesn’t feel the same way about me. He probably doesn’t even like me. I’m a nuisance and an annoyance, and it’s all pity.

I’m so incomparably stupid. To believe even for a second that I could matter to someone other than my  _ mom _ . To believe that there was a possibility…

No.

And what I feel for Zoe. What I think I feel… even that’s false. It’s all false and I’m lying and it’s too much to take.

So I rest my head against the window, and I try to disappear. Connor is sniffling. When I glance over, he has his sleeve against his nose and his eyes squeezed shut. In the dim glow of Alana’s headlights, I can see that the black face paint is completely smeared along his eyes. There are dirty looking tear tracks along his face, and blood all around his nose. I hope he didn’t break it.

There’s a Walgreens up ahead, the red neon like a beacon in the bleak night, and Zoe says, “Can you stop here?” to Jared, who must agree because he turns on the blinker and the car is filled with the  _ tick tick tick  _ noise of it before he steers into the parking lot.

I can’t get over the look in his eyes. Like he hated me. He hates me.

_ Back the fuck off! _

Jared pulls into a parking spot by the front and Alana pulls in next to us, and then Zoe is opening the car door and motioning for Jared to come too, and she says “We’ll be right back,” and shuts it so hard that my ears pop.

The cabin light fades. It’s dark. I hear Connor shift next to me, and then his voice, which is nasal sounding from all of the blood. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “Evan, I’m so sorry.”

I don’t say anything. I feel like I’m a million miles away. All I can see is his face, the feeling of his hands on my shoulders, falling. Falling to the ground, just like from the tree. Except, this time, there were so many people, looking at me. Other than that, it felt the same in my chest. I’d have to pick myself back up.

This has been the first time, and it will be the last. The first time that I decide to try, to  _ really  _ try to continue. And he’s made me feel like trying was worth it. Like, even if I made a million mistakes and showed the worst of myself, it’d be okay. Because I’d still be me.

He’s taught me that, hasn’t he… just a little bit. That being who I am is not an inconvenience. That I am not a problem. 

I think, deep down, I know that he doesn’t hate me. After he’d shoved me. On the ground… there’d been another look on his face. Helplessness. Shame.

“I was just trying to help,” I whisper.

He sniffs again. “I know you were.” 

I look at him in the darkness. The light from the Walgreens in front of us barely lines the side of his face, but I can see his eyes shining with tears. And I’ve never seen him like this before, either. He looks like he’s about to break into a million pieces. 

He swallows, loud in the silence, and adjusts his sleeve. There’s blood all over his face. “You don’t understand what it’s like,” he says. “It’s like I’m not even there. I don’t think, I just act. The anger issues, and the fucking depression, or whatever else is fucking _broken_ about me—And it’s so _stupid,”_ he spits the word, “and you don’t deserve it. Nothing even close.”

“I—,” I start, but I don’t even know what to say. The word hangs in the air, and then fades, and it’s dark and quiet and I can feel the tears starting.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk anymore.” Connor brushes hair out of his face; it’s all come out of its bun, probably from the fighting. His voice sounds so sincere and upset that it scares me.

“Is it me?” I blurt, and he stops. We make eye contact. 

He lets out a harsh breath. “The fact that you even think that. That’s why.” He turns away. “I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”

“What?”

“Do you know what it makes me feel like to know that you think that about yourself?” He bares his teeth a little. “And I’m the cause of it. I don’t want to be the reason that you doubt yourself.”

I’m shocked. My mouth is open, but my mind is going too fast to put together a coherent sentence.

“I don’t think you realize how much you mean to me.” His voice breaks in the middle of the sentence, and my chest is cleaved in two with it. Like the world is spinning around me. “Being without friends for half of your life does something to a person. And then you come along, and suddenly, everything’s different.” He’s crying again, the tears running down his face cloudy with paint. “And I’ve gone and fucked all of it up, because I have no  _ fucking  _ control.”

“You didn’t fuck it up,” I whisper. The words are burning in my throat, and I want so badly to explain all of a sudden, I want so badly to let everything come pouring out, the see-through invisibility and the fact that I’m really just a background character and the obsessive looping and what happened in the spring when I fell from the tree—

Everything builds up until it all feels like it’s towering over my head and I am so, so small, like it could all come crashing down and tear me apart. It’s fragile and dangerous, and it’s threatening to put me right back where I started. I want to write—If only I could get the words out, all rushing in my ears—

And then, for the first time in my life, and probably one of the only times that it counts, the words _ come. _

“I understand,” I start, “I really get it. It’s not easy. It’s not fucking simple—mental health isn’t something that’s  _ easy. _ But what happened back there doesn’t define who you are. Your anger, or depression, doesn’t define who you are… I’ve, I’ve seen who you are. So please don’t doubt how…  _ good  _ you are. Or how valid. And you don’t make me doubt myself because—because you’re always doing the opposite.

“I have this thing where I constantly think that I’m not worth it? Like, thinking that everything is a lie because it can’t be possible for me to deserve stuff like… well, you. And part of it’s the anxiety, I know, but even acknowledging that makes it feel so much less _real..._ and, sometimes it feels like I've been screaming out but then I realize that it’s just me in my head, and nobody even knows. Nobody knows that I’m trying to reach them. I don’t know. 

“And like, it’s hard to go to parties or social events or whatever because I just feel like I’m out of place, and so I try to tag along with you, and I’m worried that I’m annoying because you’re so… cool. And you smoke and wear cool clothes and…”

Connor half-laughs, and then winces. “Smoking isn’t cool.”

“You know what I mean.” I’ve lost the train of thought, and I’m then lost again trying to find my way back to what I was saying… “I… I…  _ Goddamnit.  _ I was—It was—,”

“I’m still sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t mean to  _ shove you. Fuck.” _

I wipe at my eyes with the base of my palm. Everything seems to have come undone, feels a little more stable. The loop is gone. For now. “Is your nose okay?”

He touches it gently with two fingers and grimaces. “It’s not broken. But it still hurts like hell.”

“And everything else?”

“What?”

“You got kneed in the chest, too.”

Connor draws in a long breath. “Yeah. That hurts. It all hurts.” He shakes his head tiredly. “I hate fucking fighting. I’ve always hated it. It’s not like I want it. It just happens.”

“He deserved it,” I say, “Even if fighting made it worse.”

“He did it on purpose,” he growls. “He saw me when we came in, and he knew fucking with Zoe would piss me off. He was trying to make me out to be more of a freak than I already am.”

“You’re not a freak.”

He looks at me, and there’s a look in his eye that’s too painful to write off as not being there. “Okay.” His voice sounds like he’s not convinced. I want to say something to make him believe me, to show him—

There’s a turning of a key in the door, and the cabin lights snap on as Zoe opens up both of the doors on Connor’s side of the car and says, “Alright, dude, come out.”

“I’m gay,” he says, and it takes my brain approximately half a second to remember everything he’s told me over the past month and have it click in my brain that  _ he’s not just kidding around.  _ Jared snickers, but Zoe just rolls her eyes. 

“Not joking. Come here.”

He scoots off of the seat and steps to the curb between Alana and his car, and Alana steps out, closing the door behind her, her headlights flicking off. Jared has two Walgreens bags; one, he hands to Zoe, which has bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and other medical looking things in it. The other is full of candy bars. I give Jared a questioning look, and he says, “What? It’s all marked down because Halloween’s over.”

“I can do it,” Connor protests when Zoe messily wets a cotton pad with a half-empty, lukewarm bottle of water next to her and starts leaning toward him. She scowls at him.

“Shut up. You’ve done enough.”

He does.

I climb out into the night air, and sit cross legged on the pavement next to Zoe, who’s on her knees, the silver fabric of her skirt against the dirty pavement. Alana has somehow changed into a t-shirt and jeans—when asked, she says she had it on under her dress—and Jared reaches into the bag and pulls out a Crunch bar, holding it out to me. I take it without looking at him.

Zoe presses the cotton to Connor’s face and he sucks in a breath. The material is so soaked that the water starts running in rivulets down his face, messy, and she growls, frustrated. “Why did you have to get in a fucking fight? What’s mom going to say when she gets back home?”

“What, should I have just stood there?” He shoots back, and her hand slips as his face moves.

“I can handle myself! I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“Fuck you! You’re still my little sister! He was a creep and a pervert—you heard him!”

“Fuck _ you! _ ”

“Guys,” Alana interjects. “Seeing as we’re standing in a Walgreens parking lot at eleven at night, maybe it’s best not to argue so loudly?”

“Whatever,” Connor huffs. “Mom’s home, by the way.”

“What?!” Zoe half-shrieks, nearly falling backwards. “Are you kidding me?”

“She wants us home by one. She thinks we’re studying at Alana’s.”

Alana cringes. “I don’t want to be a part of this!”

“Well, what are we going to say, that the homework beat you up?”

“Yeah, Zoe. That’s what we’ll say— _ ow!”  _ His hand flies to his face as Zoe brushes the cotton over the right side of his nose. “ _ God, it hurts to breathe…” _

“Alana, please help,” she moans and scoots back, looking at Connor; he looks gruesome, especially with the black face paint only half on and starting to chip off. The dried up blood is mostly gone, but his nose is still bruised and red, and he has a cut on his cheek, maybe from a ring that the guy was wearing, or something. “I don’t know what I’m doing…”

“It’s not broken,” she states, not a question. “So, there’s not really much we can do. Clean the cut on his cheek with hydrogen peroxide, and put a band-aid on it, I guess. His nose isn’t bleeding anymore.”

“Jared, can you get me some napkins from the glove box? I got ice packs,” Zoe says to him, and he leans over and opens the little compartment, grabbing a handful of brown Starbucks napkins and handing them to Zoe, who dabs at the water on his face. From the Walgreens bag, she takes out a blue box labeled  _ Instant Cold-Pak  _ and rips it open, taking a white pouch out and squeezing hard on it before shaking it up. She grabs a couple of the napkins and wraps it around the ice pack, and then hands it to Connor, who gingerly puts it on his nose.

She then takes out a tiny bottle of Ibuprofen, the pills inside rattling, and methodically (if not angrily) breaks the seal and shakes out two tiny orange tablets. Connor holds his hand out, and Zoe drops them in, passing him the water bottle. It’s quiet as he takes the pills, a cold wind blowing, Alana huddling into herself and Jared and I silently passing the huge candy bar back and forth, just like we did when we were kids.

Jared looks at the chocolate bar, then at Connor before reluctantly asking, “Want some…?”

He shakes his head. Jared cautiously takes another bite.

Connor finally says, “We have two hours before doom.”

“What?” Zoe has a hair tie around her wrist, and she ties her hair back, looking tired. Connor’s blood is smeared a little on her hands. I don’t think she’s noticed yet. 

He shakes his head. “Y’know. Two hours before curfew. Two hours before it all goes to hell. Let’s get IHOP.”

Zoe’s face twitches. “Are you serious?”

“You know that mom’s going to lose her shit when she sees me, Zo. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t let me out for a month.”

Jared perks up. “Chicken and waffles sound good.”

Everyone looks at each other for a second, and Connor shifts before saying, “This night has been ass. Can we just… get fucking pancakes?”

She takes in a breath, staring off at some nonexistent thing. And then she says, “Fine. But go clean off the rest of that makeup, or something. You look like a serial killer. It’s not even Halloween.”

He stands up shakily, and I do too, and Zoe gets to her feet and brushes off her skirt. “Can I come?” I ask, because I know that my eyes are red and puffy and my face has probably smeared Sharpie all over it, and it’s all a mess. He just gives a tired nod and starts heading inside, and I follow.

The Walgreens is full of that pale, artificial light that you only see in drug stores, and the Halloween displays haven't come down yet, so it seems almost like a weird dream. We walk briskly to the back, and Connor holds the door open for me, and we stand at adjacent sinks and splash cold water on our faces. 

The Sharpie is only smeared a little, but it still looks horrible. The paint on my nose is chipping and messy and it’s all a disaster, really, and suddenly I’m laughing and Connor’s looking at me with an odd expression, and I’m bent over trying to keep another round of tears from coming. And then he’s laughing too.

He runs a hand across his face. “This was such a dumb idea.”

“I know,” I gasp, “It really was.”

I look up. We make eye contact and hold it, and suddenly we’re not laughing anymore. He leans against the stall next to the towel dispenser. I lean against the tiled wall. In the mirror next to us, we’re reflected. And it’s a quiet moment, but a short one. My heart rises in my throat.

There are so many questions and not enough answers.

He smiles, and winces, and then smiles again. “Let’s go get pancakes.”

And when I smile back at him, something has changed. Something in me. And in a sense,  _ nothing  _ has changed because I’m the same person and the same circumstances are behind me and the same possibilities are before me. But I feel different. Lighter. Like something has just  _ clicked _ . 

Something has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst w a happy ending, who?  
> Pancakes are the best medicine. Try and prove me wrong~
> 
> Credit to Redkiko for helping with my lack of knowledge regarding ✨physical combat✨ I fear for you~


	13. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pancakes are eaten under the shadow of imminent doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So, I'm going to retract my Evan-Connor chapter pattern and instead just write whatever POV is necessary to further the story (hope you don't mind!). This being said, I won't write like five Evan chapters in a row so don't worry about that lol. Anyways, just a heads up to make sure and check the chapter title because it is in first person and I wouldn't want you to get confused ^^

We’re all sitting in an IHOP at midnight, placed in one of those booths that has the stained glass as a barrier. Not that that would even be necessary—we’re pretty much the only people in the restaurant.

We were seated immediately. The waitress gave me a questioning look as she led us to the orange plastic booth, probably noting the not-really-completely washed off face paint and the weird, reddish and agitated looking skin around my nose, and then averted her gaze, her face settling into a tired smile as she handed us the menus.

None of us speak other than to order our food until Jared is pouring what seems like litres of strawberry syrup over his chicken and waffles and is saying, “Well, tonight was bullshit.”

“Mm,” Evan says, resting his face in the crook of his arm, leaning on the sticky table. He doesn’t seem to care—he looks exhausted. Cleaned out. 

Not that I feel any different. The pain in my face and ribs is only the half of it—the whole ordeal just feels wrong. Like a bad taste in my mouth. Kind of like I really,  _ really  _ want to smoke a joint and forget about it for an hour…

Who am I kidding—like Zoe or our parents will  _ ever  _ let me forget about this, even if it isn’t my fault that she accepted the invitation to play at a sketchy-ish party, even if, technically, I was defending her, or whatever. 

I hadn’t even thought about it. It had been instinct. In fact, I was barely present throughout all of it. All that I can remember in specific detail is the feeling of his fist on my nose, the look in his eyes. The glint of the pocket knife and the whispering of bystanders.

And Evan.  _ Of course,  _ Evan. I don’t think I’ll ever forget entirely about what I did. The fact that I pushed him to the floor, spat my words in his face like weaponry. I’d thought that I’d severed the thin thread of trust between us that I was so grateful existed. Luckily, the conversation in the back seat of the car proved that otherwise.

I look at him. He looks at me. And so it goes.

“Did you know him?” Alana asks Zoe gently, poking her create-your-own-omelette with a fork.

She looks up through the steam of her hot chocolate. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you did?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, defeated. “Yeah.”

Evan pushes himself upright and rubs his eyes like a kid who’s stayed up too late. I wonder what his sleep schedule usually is—probably something consistent,  _ reasonable.  _ He looks down at his plate but doesn’t make any move to pick up the metal utensils.

“Band guy?” Jared asks through a mouthful of waffle, and Zoe bristles.

“Really, I don’t want to…” she trails off, shakes her head. “Y’know what? Okay.” She takes a long breath in through her nose and rolls her neck tiredly. “He’s not with the jazz band. He helped Nathan to set up the party.”

Jared whistles low. “You’re lucky it wasn’t Merrick himself. You’d be  _ fucked.” _

“Okay,” I say, defensive for  _ some reason,  _ and then shut my mouth and look at the waffle in front of me. I’m not even hungry—just… nervous? No. It’s like I’m lying in wait. Dread. Which makes perfect sense, seeing as, as soon as Zoe and I step into the house, all hell is going to break loose.

I’m so sick of chaos.

“If it makes you feel any better, he’s always been a dick,” Zoe amends. “He’s a womanizer.”

Alana says, “That was clear,” at the same time that I say, “Why would that make me feel any better?”

“Because,” she starts, “He wasn’t just doing it… like, because of you. Like, he wasn’t trying to aggravate you. That shit he said, about knocking you down to your level?” She shakes her head some more. It’s like she’s one of those bobble head figures (her joints always get loose like that when she’s tired). “He says that to everyone. He doesn’t even know you.”

“Just my reputation.”

She sips her hot chocolate, hisses as it burns her, and sets it back down.

“Careful,” Evan says, absent, and she smiles.

“Yeah. Your reputation.”

A moment of silence. There’s the clinking sound of dishes from the kitchen, probably the workers cleaning up in the lull of business, and Evan finally takes a bite of his pancakes. Jared occupies himself with orange juice, and Alana takes her phone out and starts tapping at it.

Then she says, “Oh.”

Zoe looks up. “No. Don’t say ‘oh’.”

Alana grimaces, and I try to lean across the table to catch a glimpse at what she’s looked at, but she has her phone angled at a weird degree and I can’t see.

“What does ‘oh’ mean?” Jared asks, and Alana clears her throat.

“Well,” she begins gingerly. “I mean… this is a good thing.”

“Just let me see it!” Zoe says, and Alana slides the phone across the sticky surface to her. 

My stomach drops. 

There I am. I can see myself push Zoe away. And then see his fist collide with the other guy’s jaw. And I’m silently praying that maybe the video cut off, maybe… no. It was inevitable.

There I am. Shoving Evan to the ground. He nearly landed on his cast.

The thing about video is that it’s impersonal. I’ve always liked reading better than movies because of this, because a movie has to be really well done to truly show the thoughts of the main character. The lighting needs to be captured just right, and the moment needs to be  _ real.  _ Reading is like looking through someone else’s eyes. So when I see the video of myself, the ugly realization is that I really  _ do  _ look like a psychopath.

Listen, I’m not going to go off on a tangent, but there’s a lot of problems that could simply be avoided by avoiding other people. Other people aren’t educated. They don’t understand what’s right in front of their faces. Because when they see a kid having a panic attack, breathing heavy, face red, the world disappearing beneath their feet, they’re filled with pity, with compassion, with whatever other watered-down emotions that have slowly,  _ slowly  _ dripped into them from social media like an I.V.

But when they see someone who’s a little different—someone whose breathing does not go heavy and whose face does not turn red, someone who is just experiencing a different rush of  _ wrong wrong wrong  _ chemistry, they don’t get it. It doesn’t click.

The world had disappeared from beneath me, too. 

No, instead, I’m the freak, the loser, ‘most likely to shoot up a school’ in the underground end-of-the-year superlatives that all of the Sophomores concocted. A monster, a psycho. Not a person at all. They don’t understand that the words are all the same—they certainly wouldn’t say stuff like that to the first example, right? But just because the target is different doesn’t make the ammunition any less real.

I still don’t understand how that guy knew about the hospital earlier this year. I’m not sure I  _ want  _ to know how.

Zoe gives Alana a horrified look. “How is this a good thing?!”

“What is it?” Evan asks, leaning a little.

“Listen,” Alana consoles, “There’s a video, now, right? Now, if anyone tries to come after you for fighting that guy, there’s proof that it was aggravated.”

“Oh, my god,” Jared says. He doesn’t even sound sarcastic, or jokey, or anything. Just surprised.

“You know that mom and dad have seen,” I say to Zoe, and she closes her eyes, slumping in the seat and massaging her temples with her fingertips. 

“This is all wrong. It was supposed to be fun, and… like…”

She trails off. Alana puts her phone away. I touch my waffle, and it’s getting cold. 

“If it makes you feel any better,” Alana says, “You played really well, Zoe.”

She laughs a bit. “It wasn’t even my guitar. I’ll be lucky if I ever play something that expensive ever again.”

“You have it wrong,” I say, and she tilts her head questioningly. “It doesn’t matter that the guitar was expensive, or whatever,  _ none  _ of that shit matters. It sounded good because  _ you  _ were the one playing it.”

Her eyes grow big, and then she looks down into her hot chocolate like she’s trying to hold back tears. I don’t know how to really react to this, and I’m about to say something or change the subject or  _ anything  _ but then she looks up, and she smiles, and it’s so perfectly aligned with who she is that everything’s okay.

For a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life hack: if you're in a bad mood, get yo'self some pancakes/waffles/other breakfast foods


	14. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Murphy's aren't a perfect family at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A trigger warning for mild references of a past suicide attempt. Nothing in detail though!
> 
> This probably reads best on a computer or tablet, because of the texting. Evan is on the left side, and Connor is on the right. But if you have any questions because it's hard to understand let me know!

We were right about one thing. Our parents have seen the video.

Jared needed a ride home—his brother was able to drop him off at the party, but still has to finish a huge college project. Zoe, who went with the band, obviously had to tag along with me back home, and Evan was the same. But the car was strangely silent as it shuttled along the interstate back toward town. 

When I pulled the car into our driveway at exactly one-thirteen, the fact that it was nearly fifteen minutes past curfew was almost enough to make me laugh at the irony of it.

Not that it mattered.

The moment that Zoe and I turned the key in the front door and stepped into the house, we saw the living room light on—the _only_ light on, the rest of the house dark. Zoe looked at me and mouthed _oh fuck_ and I just raised my eyebrows and shrugged at her.

We knew the drill: the lecturing, words upon words on our _blatant disrespect._ Eventually the pleading. The punishments.

But sitting here now, I realize that something’s off. That there’s going to be an explosion whether we like it or not.

“Who was that boy?” Larry spits. “He’s not your boyfriend?”

Zoe’s quiet on the couch. Picking at the tip of her thumbnail with her teeth. She finally mutters, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Cynthia takes a breath, and then a deep, _deep_ drink of the tea in front of her, which looks extremely hot, the steam visible and drifting. She doesn’t even seem to notice.

They look at each other, I can see in my peripherals. My eyes are trained on the carpet. And then our mother says, “Look. We’re upset. But I don’t want to argue about this.”

“Wha—,” Zoe starts, but Larry silences her with a hand.

“But that doesn’t mean we’re writing you off easy.” He turns, and I can tell that he’s looking at me from the way that my skin seems to prickle under his gaze. “Connor… look at you.” He lets out a harsh sigh, rubbing his hands across the bridge of his nose.

“It was obvious that it was… not without reason,” Cynthia starts, and then stops, a look coming over her face as if she’s not sure what to say. “Still, though… Connor… fighting? I thought we were past this.”

“What, is that what fucking Simon told you?”

“Woah,” Larry says in a way that makes it clear that talking is not the route to take in this situation. No matter how much I want to. No matter how much I want to scream. I just want a cigarette. “Language.”

Cynthia falters. “Simon may not have been helpful, but…”

“Yeah, I guess not. Bi-weekly sessions, and look what still happened? You think that his _helpfulness_ was what made me try to _fucking off myself?_ ”

“ _Connor!”_

“Well?! It’s the truth, isn’t it? And no-one in this _fucking_ family wants to look at it—”

“Connor, this isn’t about Simon, or what happened in the past year,” Cynthia says, her voice clearly portraying her desire to mediate. “We just wanted to say that… well.”

Larry rubs his temples again and grunts. “Fighting wasn’t the best approach. But you defended your sister.”

Zoe and I look at each other in stunned silence. “...but?” I prompt for him.

“No.” He shakes his head. “You were there for her when she needed it. You’re still grounded for the next two weeks. But you were there. So… think of it as a warning.” He crosses his arms and Cynthia busies herself with her tea. “But any more fighting and I swear you’ll spend the rest of your time in this house in a room without a door.”

Zoe is eerily quiet. The whole room is, except for the ringing in my ears. And then she explodes. “ _Bullshit!”_

Cynthia grimaces and curls into the couch—she’s never liked conflict. But our father just points his finger. “You, young lady. You drag your brother to a party without our permission, one that clearly was serving alcohol, and look what happens. Who was that boy, if he wasn’t your boyfriend?”

“I—,”

_“Who was it?”_

“Larry…” Cynthia cautions, but he grits his teeth.

“No. I thought that we could trust you, Zoe, and this is how you abuse that trust. We leave you home alone for a weekend, and you sneak off to get drunk?”

“I wasn’t going to drink—!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cynthia adds, soft but firm. “The fact that you were even approached by this boy was probably because of the alcohol that was there. It was incredibly irresponsible of you, and dangerous. Think what could’ve happened to you or any of your friends if someone drunk ended up driving home at the same time as you? And what about that person—,” she takes in a shaky breath, tea momentarily forgotten, “Think about what could’ve happened if he’d decided to mess with your drink. What then?” 

“And if it weren’t for our convention getting cancelled, you would’ve gotten away with it. You need to find your place,” Larry half-shouts. I’m staring at Zoe’s face. Watching it crack. 

_“I’m a teenager! What do you expect?_ ” she shouts back. “Oh, _wait, you wouldn’t expect anything because you’re too focused on Connor. Connor’s problems and Connor’s feelings—”_

 _“Fuck you!”_ I interject.

“Enough!” Larry roars. “Zoe, you’re taking a break from jazz band!”

Her face goes slack. “...what?”

“That’s right,” he nods, and his tone has dropped quite a bit. “You need to focus less on parties and performances and more on your grades.”

“My grades are perfect!” she cries, but the protest obviously is falling on deaf ears.

Here’s the thing about my family: there are no alliances. When we argue, there’s no winner. And though Zoe basically just shit all over me less than a minute go, I can tell that this has gone too far. “Wait, dad, she doesn’t—,”

_“What, so he gets in a fight and gets off scot free—meanwhile, I’m fucking harassed and you take away what I love as a punishment?”_

_“AND YOU’RE LUCKY THAT’S ALL WE’RE TAKING AWAY!”_

She stands up, face red. “I can’t believe you. I fucking _hate you!”_

_“GO TO YOUR ROOM!”_

_“I’M NOT A CHILD!”_ She turns, races up the stairs, flashing him the middle finger all the way up. We hear her door slam. 

I scowl at them. I don’t say anything, but I don’t have to. They know what I’m thinking. And I leave.

\--

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“Go away.”

“I just—,”

“Leave me the _fuck alone,_ Connor."

\--

“It’s three, Zo. You’re still not asleep?”

“I was thirsty.”

“Right. And I was born yesterday.”

“Y’know what, fuck you. How does it feel to have them care so much about you?”

“...What?”

“Ever since May. They’re so worried that if they do anything moderately severe, you’re going to…”

“What.”

“Nothing.”

“Goddamnit, I didn’t fucking ask for this. Don’t make it my fault.”

“ _Sssh._ I don’t feel like getting yelled at.”

“Then go back to bed.”

“I said I was thirsty.”

“...”

“...”

“You know, it was fucked up of them to do that.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

“...”

“I know how much that stupid band means to you.”

“At least they didn’t take my guitar.”

“ _Ha._ I don’t think dad has the balls to do that.”

“Oh, yeah? Don’t jinx it.”

\--

“Hey, Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s no-one’s fault. I’m still sorry.”

“That guy was a dick. I kind of hope he burns in hell.”

“Oh, there you are. You’ve been kind of out of it all night.”

“Huh.”

“Well, you have. You didn’t eat dinner.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“...the party was fucked. The whole night was.”

“I can’t believe I pushed Evan.”

“...He didn’t seem _too_ mad.”

“Yeah, we talked in the car.”

“Oh.”

“Zoe.”

“What?”

“I don’t know… just… I’m not going to apologize. But I don’t know what else to do. What to say to make this better.”

“That’s not your job.”

“Well, I’ve fucked everything else up, it’s the least I can do.”

“You’re a good person.”

“Ha.”

“Really.”

“...”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Good night.”

\--

My phone screen lights up in the five a.m. darkness. I haven’t slept a second, just sitting in my bed and watching the curtains waving in the wind from the fan. The screen is so bright that it hurts my eyes, and I lean over and grab it from off of my bedside table, surprised to see Evan’s name on top of the text I received.

**Thanks for talking in the car. I really needed that.**

I can’t help but laugh to myself.

 **You’re up early** **.**

**Yeah, mom and I are going into the city for something.**

**You are too.**

**I never slept.**

The three dots appear, disappear, and then come back before vanishing again. Four minutes pass.

**Ha?**

**That’s not good**

**Sorry I texted you**

**Nothing better to do**

**Hey, by the way I’m seriously really sorry**

**You already said so. I know.**

**I wanted to say it again.**

**So: I’m sorry**

**You’re starting to sound like me**

**omg**

**But it’s ok. I accept your apology**

**Okay**

**I’m glad**

**:)**

**go to sleep now**

**bold of you to assume that I even need to sleep**

**good night**

I turn off my phone. My face is aching like crazy… maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. 

Or maybe it’s Zoe. What she said. I never meant to bring up what happened back in May last night, but it happened anyway.

Silence.

The house is so quiet, and my thoughts are so loud.

And then I get up and dig the bucket list out of my hoodie pocket, and I scratch a line through _Go to a party_ so hard that the paper rips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow lots of angst you guys I promise that things will start looking up soon! also did I mention writing is hard ;--;


	15. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A constant reminder is taken away, but that doesn't mean that it stops reminding.

“You’ve never gotten a cast off before?” Asks Mindy Shurin, my mom’s coworker, jotting something down on a clipboard as I sit on the blue vinyl exam table, looking at the lines on my cast-free hand. My mom is somewhere else in the hospital, but I don’t mind. I’ve gotten to know a lot of her coworkers over the years, the times that she could coax me out of my room when they were over for dinner, and they’re all really nice. 

I shake my head. “This is the first time I’ve broken a bone.”

She laughs, sets down the clipboard, and adjusts her glasses on her aquiline nose. “You’ve really got to be more careful around trees.” She picks up a tool from the counter. “Hold out your cast for me?”

Obliging, she steps forward, wielding what looks like a tiny circular razor blade. Seeing me flinch back (I can’t help it), she turns it on and presses it gently against her palm; it stops moving. “It won’t cut you,” she says, “see how it’s not really spinning? It’ll only cut through the hard layer.”

I nod and she turns on the tool again, gently pressing the blade into the cast and cutting it down the side until there’s a long fracture, and then repeating the same on the other side. It’s incredibly loud and there’s some dust that flies off of it, but other than that, it’s fine. I focus my gaze on a bug trapped in the fluorescent lights.

“Connor must be a lucky guy,” she smiles, and I look down at the cast. She’s leaning over my arm, so close that a ringlet of her curly hair is falling against my cheek. “Best friend?”

“Sort of,” I swallow. 

She leans back, puts her hair behind her ear, giving me an apologetic glance before gently slipping the cast off of my arm. And… just like that, it’s gone. All evidence of what happened at the end of the summer. No more seeing Connor’s name on my arm every time I look down, and Jared’s, Zoe’s with little drawn stars, Alana’s perfect cursive.

No more having to wrap myself in plastic just to take a shower. Thank god.

She takes a pair of scissors and snips the gauze until all that’s left is my bare arm, which looks decidedly smaller than usual and is… kind of gross, really. The hair is a whole shade darker, and it’s pale. It even  _ smells  _ off. And it’s stiff.

“Go ahead and bend your elbow for me, rotate your forearm?” She asks, and I do. There’s no real pain, just a feeling of rigidity.

“That’s so weird,” I mutter, and this makes her smile as she puts the tools up.

“Well, Mr. Hansen,” she says, leaning back on the counter after typing a few things into her computer. “No pain, no soreness…?”

“No.”

“Then you’re good to go.” She straightens her papers and clips them onto the already overflowing clipboard. “I’ll send Heidi in here and let her know you’re done, and get a doctor’s note printed up for you.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Shurin.”

“Just Mindy,” she says warmly, patting my shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Ev.” She gathers her supplies and leaves the room, gently shutting the door behind her.

She left the cast on the table. I move my gaze to it, gently lean over to pick it up, shaking off the little bits of dust that have collected on the edges of the cut. 

I have the _ weirdest  _ feeling—

Because here it is, right? The real life evidence that I fell from the tree. That that memory is even real. I kind of want to just throw the cast out (y’know, like a normal person) because I don’t know if remembering the clearing and falling from the tree is something I necessarily want to do.

My heart rate picks up.

Maybe it’s like a painting. Like, a painting that’s not very well-done, and the lines are messy, and the colors are kind of smeared, but from far away, it looks fine. Normal. Maybe even beautiful.

I don’t want to look at it any more closely. I want to stay yards and yards away.

But the cast also has Connor’s name on it, as well as the others’. I trace each signature lightly with my finger, feeling the cross-hatched texture of the cast material and wondering if they have notable significance. Because it is  _ also  _ evidence that I have friends,  _ real  _ ones. And maybe it’s stupid, but I don’t want to throw that away, for some reason.

I’m alone in the room for a long time. Long enough that the minute hand passes the hour hand on the teal clock above the door, and then twenty five more minutes tick away. The lights buzz. And now that I’ve noticed the sound of the clock ticking, I can’t  _ un _ notice it.

It’s not that I didn’t expect this—my mom is super busy, and that’s not her fault.

Just… I don’t know.

At one thirty-seven, the door finally opens and my mom steps in quickly, looking stressed. She’s in those scrubs with the flowers on them, so maybe she’s dealing with a kid today, and her hair is up, and she looks very well put together other than the fact that her eyes are tired. 

She gives me a long, contrite look before saying, “I’m so sorry, honey. Something important came up, and I haven’t been able to come and talk to you…

“It’s fine,” I say, swinging my legs a little. Of course, it’s not really  _ fine— _ I’ve missed a class now that I had a quiz in, and I also missed lunch, so now I have to find time to get something from a vending machine when there’s no line—but, in the moment, it’s the thing she needs to hear.

Her shoulders sink a little in relief and she shuts the door, stepping forward. “Let’s see that arm.”

I hold it out to her, and she smiles. “That looks like it’s healed up great,” she says, gently touching the area where my bone broke, a focused look on her face. She leads me through a short range of motion test and there’s no real complications except for a painful pinching feeling whenever I try to bend my elbow. She says that there’s exercises we can do for that, and that I won’t need a splint or anything.

“And we’re going to have to soak it in warm water twice a day for a few days,” she says, turning and washing her hands at the little sink. “Your skin is super sensitive because it’s been in the cast… and,” she pauses to wipe her hands with the brown paper towels, and then turns back to me. “You know.”

I look back at the clock. “Do I need to walk to school?” It’s not that far, actually just a little under a mile away, so it’s not really much of an exertion, especially with cool weather like this.

“Actually,” she starts, sitting on the examination table next to me. “I was thinking you could take the rest of the day off, if you want it.”

I swallow. “How come?”

“Well, it’s already almost two, and I wouldn’t want to go back just for two hours of school.” She crosses her arms. “Maybe you can have Jared or Connor come over after? I won’t be home until late, so I don’t mind if they drop off your homework, or even stay. Watch a movie…”

“Where… is this coming from?” I force myself to ask slowly, scratching the back of my neck. She’s acting odd, though not necessarily in a bad way. Just like she’s trying to make it up to me for being late. Or it could be that she’s trying to be  _ normal,  _ to talk about me hanging out with my friends. She’s just as new to it as I am.

She lets out a tired sigh and leans against me in a kind of half-hug. “Your progress report was on the table when I came home. Your grades are  _ really  _ good, Evan. Excellent.” She pauses to brush cast dust off the shoulder of my sweater. “And with your friends hanging around, you seem so much happier. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I thought maybe you deserved a little break. Playin’ hooky.” She says this as if cutting the rest of the day could make me a member of the _ T-Birds  _ from Grease.

I think about how I have English with Connor for last period, and then about how he told me over text the other day that he’s grounded and I’m not going to get to see him for a while. And I also think about the homework I’ll miss (with my luck, probably the stuff that’ll be on the final) if I just go home.

A month ago, I would’ve gladly taken up the offer of taking the rest of the day off… but now?

What’s wrong with me…?

“Actually,” I say, quiet, “I kind of wanted to finish the day.” She gives me a surprised look, and I add, “I have a ton of homework, uh, already, and I don’t want to miss any more.”

She thinks for a second. It’s obvious that she’s going over the same thing that I did, my sudden willingness to subject myself to introvert hell. And then she smiles, and it takes the tiredness out of her eyes for just a moment, and she nods and says, “Yeah, of course. I can give you a ride if we head out now.”

\--

I don’t go right home after school.

Connor walks with me a little until we reach the entrance to the neighborhood, and I make to turn instead.

“Where are you going?” he asks, crossing his arms as we wait at the stoplight. I’ve already made it clear that I’m going to be turning right, but I want to be around him for as long as possible, especially now that we can’t see each other outside of school. Is that weird?

I’m not sure whether I should lie to his question or tell the truth, but something in me decides that being honest is the best route to take, and so I simply say, “I’m going into the woods.”

“The woods?” he laughs, incredulous. “Down that way, by the lake. Where you broke your arm.”

The light turns green, and instead of leaving him I continue walking by his side. “Well, yeah.”

“You just got your cast off today, Hansen. Eager to break another limb?

“It sounds weird now that I’m saying it out loud, but I wanted to go just to… like, see it.”

We get to the other side of the road, and instead, he stops on the sidewalk to tie his shoe other than continuing on. “To see the tree…?”

I nod. “...where I fell.”

A short silence before Connor stands up and looks at me. “Well… can I come?

I blink. “Come…? With me?”

He rolls his eyes. “No, by myself when you clearly said that you’re going too. Yeah, with you. Just to make sure you don’t kill yourself falling from a pine tree, or something.”

There’s a moment where the world seems to buffer, and the weird feeling from earlier pangs back into my chest, but then it’s gone, and Connor’s smiling, and I realize,  _ oh, no, he doesn’t... _

Something about turns of phrase always have made me nervous.

“Aren’t you grounded?” I say, and he brushes me off.

“They’re not going to be home until, like, seven, and Zoe won’t rat me out. Larry took her out of jazz band.”

“Oh, shit,” I whisper. I knew that the Murphy parents were strict but… “Is she okay?”

“As okay as a starving musician is.” He shrugs. “So, can I come?”  
I think about it. And I realize that going back to this tree probably isn’t the _best_ thing I can do for my mental health, especially alone. And I also realize that now I have a chance to be around him—just him, not Zoe or Alana or Jared…

I nod. “Yeah, okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gotten a lot of positive feedback for this story, so thank you so much!! ^^
> 
> I told you the angst would let up a little bit! :p


	16. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations are had, and neither of them are easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of past suicide attempts (not graphic!)

“Quiet, out here.”

“Yeah, it’s always like that in the afternoons.”

I turn my head to look at Evan as we walk, shoes crunching over the fallen leaves coating the forest floor. Despite the thick sunshine, the cover of the leaves offers a dense shade only accentuating the bite in the air that leaves both of our noses red. “So you come here pretty often?”

“There was a point when I did almost every day,” he says. “Good for homework, drawing, studying…”

“Existential introspection,” I add, and he grins. “Or, in your case, falling out of trees.”

I can see him glance down at his arm, bare and pale looking in the dappled light offered through the trees, and he shrugs. “That was kind of an accident, I guess,” he amends, a low tone in his voice that I don’t hear too often. Just when he talks about his dad. The anxiety, the looping.

It had physically hurt me to hear that. How he can get caught in his own head, like his own thoughts are traps ready to clamp shut on him. If anyone should have a safe space, it should at least be their own head—not that I’m saying my thoughts are exactly hunky-dory either.

“Poor impulse control,” he finishes, crossing his arms. 

“The falling?” I try to make a joke, but he grimaces and fiddles with the little hanging straps on his backpack.

“Just the climbing.”

I look out at the woods around us, shrugging into my hoodie—I always talk about how much I like the cold, but when it actually cools down, I find myself cursing it just as much as heat. Lucky for me, the town only seems to have two temperature settings, and they’re both extreme. “Well, are we going to get to see this infamous tree today?”

“I said that, right?” He says, his voice still detached, and it’s so wrong and _awkward_ that I almost stop walking. We haven’t been like this in _months_ ; talking became comfortable a long time ago. It’s easy to organize my thoughts into words when they’re falling on Evan’s ears, but now I just feel… odd.

The conversation feels strained. 

He turns to me, stops, and suddenly we’re face to face. My reaction time has always been tragically slow, and I nearly run into him; I force myself to hard stop, my heels digging into the soft dirt, and then we’re so close that I can feel his breath above where my hoodie covers on my neck.

The rest of the woods fall away, and suddenly, there’s a silence and rushing in my blood, and I feel a pulling toward him that’s stronger than usual. He doesn’t step back, so I don’t either.

And then he says, “This was a mistake, wasn’t it?”

“...What?”

“Bringing you here.” I notice that his eyes are red, but he’s not crying. It’s painfully recognizable, that kind of sorrow that’s just pressure in your mind, enough to make your pulse rush and cold sweat break out across your neck, enough to push you to the edge, but never allow the stress to be relieved. 

Why does he feel like this?

Other than the anxiety and the looping.

Is it _that?_ Have I not been paying enough attention?

I want to do something, I want to reach forward and pull all of the noise out of his head and put it into mine, I want to block out the rest of _everything_ and help it to just be _quiet._

It’s a strangely protective feeling

Fuck.

“What do you mean?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.

He just keeps walking, turning and not answering my question, and it’s so unlike him that, again, it takes me longer than usual to follow suit, rushing after him.

 _“What do you mean?”_ I ask again, and I hate realizing it but there’s some semblance of anger creeping into my voice because he’s not answering me, and something is obviously wrong.

“It’s stupid,” he says from ahead of me, walking so quickly that he’s nearly running—I’m able to catch up to him in a few long strides, but he doesn’t slow down when I do. “I just wanted to come here. I shouldn’t’ve brought you because it’s not even a _thing—,”_

“Evan, I don’t understand what you’re talking about—,”

“I just wanted to, like see it? Have proof that it’s real?” He scoffs a little, quiet. It’s disdainful and unlike him, but to be full out angry would make him seem like a completely different person. No. His anger is almost invisible. Subdued and quiet and shaking and horrible. “Proof of how stupid I am.”

“You’re not stupid,” I say, trying to catch my breath as cold air passes through my lungs, not seeming to oxygenate me as much as it should. “Evan.”

No answer. We’re suddenly in a clearing, and, as if the visual has unlocked a memory, I recognize it from the drawing that he showed me that day in the rain. It’s the clearing where he broke his arm. There’s the pine tree, right there, so majestically beautiful and so tall that I have to _fucking crane my neck back to see the top._

Evan stops, drops his backpack like it’s burning him. And he just stands there, his back to me, arms wrapped around himself.

I slow down, silently _praying praying praying_ to not _fuck this up._ To not be abrasive, to not be rough. To listen. To make things right. Even if I know deep down that it’s beyond my capacity. Even if I don’t think I’ve ever been a good listener in my life.

_Please._

I walk around to face him.

There’s a look on his face that I’m not expecting. Not angry or upset, even. Just lost. Lost in the view of it (the tree) or the sound of them (his thoughts, maybe, because he’s so quiet that it’d be foolish of me to think otherwise).

And then his gaze falls on me. 

And his voice is so quiet.

“Can I tell you something?”

And for once in my life. For the very first time—

I find the space to listen.

\--

There’s a knock on my door.I’m so surprised by it that when my head shoots up to look, I can feel my neck ache. “ _Shit,”_ I mutter, looking down at my now helplessly smeared thumbnail. I’m sitting at the little table by my door, the desklamp shining yellow light over where I’ve been repainting my nails.

No one _ever_ knocks on my door. If they want to talk to me, they come right in—as seen with Zoe’s entrance when Evan was over for the Watership Down project. So this is something new. 

I’ve either done something wrong, or…

Yeah, that’s all I can think of.

When I don’t answer, the door slowly opens and I see—get this—the face of my _father_ looking at me with the expression of someone who’s either terribly sorry or deeply perturbed.

“Hey,” he says, “I wanted to talk to you.”

I blink, look down at the black nail polish smeared all over my thumb, look back at him, and even with all of this thinking time, the only thing that I can get out is, “ _What?”_

He comes in, sits down on the edge of my bed, and all I can do is watch him, astonished.

“Talk?

He nods. 

I make a face. “ _Why?”_

I don’t think Larry has been in my room since I was fourteen. It’s so odd seeing him here that the illusion of isolation and safety is so quickly shattered that I’m tempted to just _leave._

“You’re painting your nails,” he says. It’s obvious he’s trying to make conversation, but… I mean.

I nod at him like it’s the most normal and obvious thing in the world. “Yup.”

Silence, and it occurs to me now that he maybe _does_ want to talk, and that, of course, I’m fucking up this conversation with my aloof-ness or not-caring-ness or anything else. I look down again at my hands and flex my fingers. And then I turn in the chair to face him.

“Connor,” he says, and he scrubs a hand along his face sheepishly. “I’m sorry—,” He cuts himself off with a clearing of his throat, and then shakes his head. He won’t make eye contact with me—why won’t he make eye contact with me?

“Is this about what happened with the party? Because you should be apologizing to Zoe, not me.”

He’s still looking at the wall. “I’ve already talked to your sister. It wasn’t... I was harsh with both of you. I need to expect you to do stuff like that. Zoe was right, you are just teenagers.”

“I hope you’re letting her back into jazz band.”

“I still need to go over it with your mother.”

“Then what did you want to talk about?” I ask, and it comes out way more abrasive than I intended, sharp, more like a demand. I’m trying. I really am, I guess, but it’s hard, because just being around him makes me feel on edge.

And, of course, I’ve been on edge since I got home. 

After Evan had told me that he wanted to talk, we’d sat underneath the tree where he’d fallen—and that’s the thing. He told me. Everything. How, that weekend, when he came back and he had that cast, he had _not,_ in fact, fallen.

It had been a choice.

And I hadn’t known how to react, other than lean over and rest my shoulder against his and try to be stable when he so clearly hadn’t told anyone about it. Not even himself, it felt like. It was the worst kind of confession.

He’d explained that he was better now. Every day, really. That he was prescribed medication, not because he told anyone about what happened, but because the anxiety was worse because of it, and that even if it wasn’t perfect now, it was certainly better.

He said he was glad he met me, that it may be the greatest thing that’s happened to him in a long time.

And it’s the most that I’ve heard him talk in one sitting, and just hearing his _voice_ continuously made me notice even more clearly how strong he was for telling me.

But even then. Even after we left his cast under the tree and had walked out of the clearing, there’d been an ache in my chest at the _truth_ of it. And it hasn’t gone away.

Even when he reached out and took my hand. I walked him home, and it was the most normal thing possibly in the history of my existence, something that just _made sense._ Something that didn’t cause my heart to race or face to flush or anything. Just… something incredibly important, and new, and necessary.

My father clears his throat again, wrenching me back to the present. “I wanted to ask you… I… how are you doing, Connor?”

I pause again. “What?”

“I know we grounded you, and the conversation a few nights ago was really… it was a mess. This family can be a mess.” He looks away. Maybe he’s nervous. Wouldn’t that be a mind-fuck. “And we didn’t really get to go over some things. For one, you got in a fight. And that hasn’t happened in months.”

“Okay?”

“You also brought something up. You said that this family never wants to acknowledge what happened last May, or talk about it.” He finally makes eye contact with me, and I’m suddenly filled with such surprise and _hurt_ in my chest that I want to cry. I bite down hard on my lip. “So, I wanted to ask if you’re okay. How you’re doing. I never did, before…”

Silence.

“...I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

“Dad…” My voice breaks, and I hate myself for it.

“When we got that call and heard what you’d… _done,”_ he takes a harsh breath. “I knew I’d made an unfixable mistake. I know that I haven’t always been the most understanding—,”

“Oh, my god.”

“But I’m here, now. I know I wasn’t in the past.”  
More silence. Except now, it’s absolute, because there’s no thoughts in my head. Just a feeling, right in between my ribs.

And then, “I love you, son. I don’t… I don’t want to lose you.”

My mouth has fallen open. 

He can’t be… He can’t—Now? After all this time—He—

“What, did Simon put you up to this?”

Larry looks up, surprise on his face. “What?”

“I asked you a question,” I spit, even though somewhere in the back of my mind, panic alarms are going off, commanding me to _stop stop stop and listen._

Listen.

Like with Evan.

_...the clearing. The golden leaves, fallen to make a yellow blanket on the forest floor. His hand, on mine. His heart, in my hands. The truths he told me._

_Stop, stop, stop. Listen._

My father stands up, and then he walks over to me, and he puts a hand on my shoulder, solid, consoling.

“Your old therapist didn’t tell me to apologize to you, or to do this. But it was necessary anyway.”

And then he leaves. And I’m so shocked, that I don’t hear my phone go off. When I open it five minutes later to check the time, I see a text that I got.

An unknown number, and four words.

**Sunset Cove Rehabilitation Center.**

My blood goes cold.

_Oh, fuck._

And then one more text comes in, and I unlock my phone to read it, hands shaking.

**I know.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much again for all of the positive feedback! (I say this every chapter so why stop now..)  
> Please consider commenting your thoughts and opinions! They literally make my life about ten times better.


	17. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *cough cough* cause it's an effed up world but it's a two-player game *cough*

“Sure you don’t want anything? A soda?”

“I’m good.”

Jared snorts as he sits down next to me, cold can of root beer in his right hand. “Good, except for the fact that you’re running into a wall.”

I look back up at the t.v. screen to see that Aquaman is running in an endless loop against the side-scroller’s invisible barrier. “Oh.” Leaning down, I pick up the remote from where it’s next to me on the floor, and he stops moving—well, except for that weird, swaying-back-and-forth animation that fighting games are almost obligated to have. 

Jared wanted to play Guitar Hero, but it always goes way too fast on any level other than easy to be actually fun. That, and he’s ridiculously good at it, enough to make playing against him not worth the time—though, not as good as Zoe; We all found that out a month or so ago when Jared bet her that he’d win. She destroyed him. Mercilessly.

So, he’d just shrugged and put in a DC Superhero fighting game, which isn’t any better, truthfully, but not worse, either. We’re sitting next to each other in front of the couch in his living room, and all of the lights are off except for the shine of the television. It kinda makes my eyes hurt… but it’s nice too. Especially because I haven’t hung out with Jared in what feels like years.

“Thanks for coming over,” he says, face trained on the screen, his glasses catching the reflection so that I can’t see his eyes. “I’m sick of staying home alone.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” I say at the exact same moment that he says, “Not that I care—,” and then we both shut up and listen to the sounds of Harley Quinn beating the living hell out of Aquaman.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

I shrug, even if he can’t see it. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

I’m glad to have the controller in my hand and the screen on in front of us, like a buffer. It’s easier to talk like this, like having something to fidget with. Knowing that his full attention isn’t turned on me makes it easier to speak. “I just mean that we haven’t hung out in a while.”

“You’re sorry for that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know anything?” He takes a breath in through his nose. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know. I just mean, like, I haven’t... I’ve been hanging out with Connor more. Like when you came to the table, and Alana was there. I was just—worried that you’d think I was trying to abandon you or, or something…” I trail off and try to ignore my ears burning. I’ve gotten so used to talking to Connor, to having it be _easy,_ that now… 

“It’s not your fault that I left.”

I shrug again. “I just thought you were sick, or something.”

“For like, a month?”

“I… guess. You said you were doing stuff, right?”

“Crazy fucking shit, Hansen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first month of school was one long, horrible trip.”

_“You did drugs?”_

“I—,” he scoffs, “No, I did not _do drugs—_ well… no. No, not really. I was being… I was exaggerating.”

By some strange miracle, my button smashing has allowed me to finally— _finally—_ hit Jared. His health bar drops by about two percent.

“I just mean that it all feels like a weird dream. Just _weird._ ”

“Oh. What happened?”

I can see him shake his head in my peripheral vision. “Not that important. My point it that I’m sorry for not keeping in touch.”

“We did text…”

“Yeah, only if you texted me first.”

_Oh._

Well, I guess he’s right.

“Listen, I’m just trying to say that I’m kind of flighty, and shit. Unreliable. So, sorry.”

I think about this, and I’m about to say _it’s okay_ when I can suddenly hear my therapist’s voice in the back of my head going ‘ _Saying ‘it’s okay’ is only letting the other person know that what they’re apologizing for is alright with you.’_ And so instead, I reply with, “I accept your apology.”

He snorts again. “If anything, it’s good that I was gone for a bit. When I came back, you were fuckin’ kind of _vibing.”_

“...vibing?”

He shakes his head. “Never mind. Maybe Connor’s not such a bad person after all.”

“What you did at the party a few weeks ago was good of you, Jared.”

Harley Quinn stops. I notice about a second too late before turning my head to see that Jared’s set the controller down on the floor. “I just… drove,” he says, looking confused, face halfway between a wince and a frown.

“It probably would’ve been a mess if you hadn’t.”

“Huh.” He crosses his arms and takes a drink from the can next to him. “I feel bad for being an asshole to Murphy.”

“Like, last year?”

“Sure, yeah. Whatever.” 

He looks back at the screen, but I keep looking at him. Jared, who I’ve known since I was a kid. When did we start growing apart…? When did things start being awkward? Middle school? The fifth grade?

“You’re staring, Ev. And I just beat you.”

I look back at the screen to see Aquaman fall to the ground in defeat. “Oh.”

Jared sighs. “I guess it just felt like… it was nice to call someone _else_ the loser for once.”

I don’t agree with him, but I don’t disagree either, and that’s enough. Instead I just say, “Rematch?” and he grins. “And can I have a soda? If that’s okay…?”

“Hah. Evan Hansen drinking a sugary soda at ten at night.” He laughs and stands up. “Coke or Pepsi or root beer?”

“Sparkling water.”

He blinks incredulously. “What the—bubbly water is not fucking soda—,” he cuts himself off with a laugh. “You know what, yeah, what flavor?”

“It has sugar in it, right? So that makes it soda?”

“Jesus Christ,” he says from the kitchen. “We have _faintly considered strawberry, shipped in the same truck as a crate of apples,_ and _tasteless.”_ I lean over the couch to see him. “That means lemon.”

“Apple?”

The sound of the fridge door closing. He comes over and I scoot back to my spot, taking the cold can from him, and he smiles, rolling his eyes. “Good to see that some things never change.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one's a little shorter than usual! I think that I accidentally set life to hard mode when I loaded it up so hhhh here I am


	18. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans are suggested and made, but they're not all of the positive variety.

Three weeks have passed since the fight. A week since the horrible bruises on my nose and ribs have faded. Two-and-three-quarters of a week since I got the text on my phone from an unknown number.

And before I know it, November has nearly come and gone and nothing else has happened. No ominous follow-up, absolutely _nothing._ In a blink, I’m not grounded anymore and then it’s Thanksgiving Break and mom is begging me to invite my new friends over for Thanksgiving dinner, _if it’s okay with their families, of course. Hey, let’s invite them, too!_

After what I assume must’ve been some more poring over the video, I guess that she saw Evan help me to get the fuck out of there and maybe even Jared rushing off to the car. I have no idea how much actually got captured—I’m refusing to watch it again. But she probably realizes that I was the only one ‘acting out’, and that the others were _healthy influences,_ or whatever term she wants to use.

No matter. Evan’s coming over for Thanksgiving, his mom having sneak-attacked him with yet another extra shift, and Jared’s coming too, which is fine, I guess. I’m still not quite sure what to think of him. Annoying, yes, obviously ridiculously insecure. I’m still trying to get past how I’ve seen him treat Evan, though, yeah, that has gotten a bit better.

Who knows. Everyone has their own shit.

And though Alana’s not able to make it, Zoe still invited her to the fucking _camping trip_ that she’s somehow manipulated mom into allowing.

I still don’t know how, in _any_ plane of existence, she was able to set it up. 

If I know one thing about my sister, it’s that she’s a sweet talker when she needs to be—despite the shit that went down the night of the Halloween party. A few well placed sentences to mom about how the lack of jazz band has allowed her to focus more on herself and how she would love to spend more one-on-one time building meaningful relationships with her friends, and she’d somehow scored both a weekend-long trip to the old camping spot and a spot back in the band in December. And yeah, Cynthia and Larry had already planned on allowing her back, but still.

I hate her for it—I’d never in a million years be able to pull of shit like that—but I love her for it, too. Siblings, huh?

So now Hansen and Kleinman are coming over to join us Murphy’s for a night of tense conversation and forced formality, and tomorrow, we’re all driving up North to the old camping spot that our family used to visit for the weekend.

What could go wrong?

When the doorbell rings, I’m the first downstairs, and Zoe gives me a glance from where she’s setting the table in the dining room.

“Why do you look so nice?”

I look down at myself—I’m wearing the button-down I got at the thrift store downtown, the one with the moths printed on it—and then squint back up at her. “Mom told us to dress up. You obviously didn’t get the memo.”

Her mouth falls open. “Shut up—nevermind. Just wait until mom sees you in that—,”

“ _Oh,_ Connor!”

...and I’m suddenly being enveloped in the crushing hug of my mother. I grit my teeth, but Zoe just smirks. 

She holds me at arms length, and it takes all of my willpower not to squirm out of her grip. “You look so nice! When did you get that shirt?”

“Like, two months ago…”

She must sense my discomfort and puts her hands down, patting my shoulder instead. “I haven’t seen you wear it before.” She smiles, sighs through her nose. “Well, you should get the door, then?”

Zoe shakes her head from the table, amused, and I just give a tight-lipped smile and turn the doorknob to see a moderately-dressed-up Jared Kleinman standing on our step, holding a circular tin in front of him. 

“Uh, hi,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Hey,” I deadpan.

“Is Evan here yet?” He shuffles his feet uncomfortably and nearly drops the tin before scrambling to regain his hold of it.

“Nope.”

He nods awkwardly, nostrils flaring a little, and clears his throat. “I brought cookies. Well, my mom made me bring them, but—,”

“Thanks, Jared,” Zoe says from where she’s come up behind my shoulder. He offers up the tin to her, and she pushes me gently out of the way with her shoulder. “You can come in.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” He steps inside, and Zoe closes the door behind him, immediately aiming a glare straight in my direction.

“What?!”

“Can you at least _try_ to not be…” she gestures wildly, not sure what to say. “You know. Abrasive?”

“How was anything that just happened in the doorway _abrasive?”_

“You were practically blocking the whole doorway! _Abandon hope all ye who enter here!”_ She scoffs. “Whatever, just… can the edgy shit chill for just, like, _one_ night?”

I return her glare. “I’m not even wearing black,” I mutter, but she’s already stepped over to Jared, being her personable self and trying her best to combat his certain dread of being in the house of people who you don’t _really_ know. He kind of got roped into the… friend group (?)... when he showed up, sticking by Evan, and even if we have hung out a lot over the past month out of school (arcades, a movie, study sessions, and Alana’s birthday at the Natural Science Museum) he’s never actually been over to Zoe and I’s house.

I don’t feel sympathetic, not even a little bit. I’ve had my fair share of uneasily learning the unspoken rules of someone else’s space (should I take off my shoes? Where’s the trash can? Can you point me in the direction of the bathroom?). He and Zoe have disappeared into the dining room, leaving me alone in the entryway, and, letting out a harsh breath, I step into the tiny bathroom right on the side of the little hallway leading to the living room, flicking on the light and locking the door behind me.

It’s this horrible, ocean-themed bathroom. There’s no real reason why—as far as I can remember, neither Zoe or myself have ever even been to the beach—but Cynthia chose it anyway. The grey-blue walls, the stupid, quote artwork with nasueating phrases like, _smell the sea, feel the breeze, hear the ocean, be at ease,_ and the like. It’s an obvious nod at my mother’s attempt to make the house seem as pristine and put-together as possible, but just feels fake and particularly annoying, especially tonight.

I stare myself down in the mirror.

 _Okay. It’s fine. In a few minutes, Evan will be over, and then everyone is going to be here and sitting at the table with mom and the horrible almost-food and dad and… oh_ god. 

_Okay, okay, calm down. It’ll be fine. Just, like, let Zoe make the small talk. Be chill. Be as chill as a fucking iceberg. Be less… confronting. Be less abrasive, and be more—_

Doorbell. Goddammit.

I splash water on my face and then feel like the most try-hard idiot in the northern hemisphere, as if that’ll help. I unlock the bathroom and step out to see that my mom has already taken over the front door, and is standing in front of Evan, doing that gush-y voice that she gets whenever she’s talking to or about him. I honestly don’t think she’s gotten used to how good of an influence he is yet.

Evan, looking a tad more nervous than usual, catches a glimpse of me over her shoulder and sags a little in relief.

“Hey,” I say, coming to the door next to her, and he smiles. 

“Hey, Connor.” He turns his attention to my mother, the brief moment of calm having passed and the anxiousness settling back onto his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything. My mom hasn’t been able to get to the store—,”

“Oh, that’s alright,” she says, still smiling wistfully. Then she looks at me, who must be giving her a puzzled/mildly disgusted expression, and then she goes, “Oh! Well, I’ll leave you to it,” and walking away.

Evan looks back at me. “Thanks for inviting me. Your shirt is cool."

"Thanks."

He smiles more, crossing his arms around himself. "Is anyone else here yet?”

“Honestly, really I should be thanking _you_ for coming. Hopefully for once, the dining room won’t turn into a fucking battle zone.” I shut the door behind him and lock it. “And Jared’s here, I think he’s with Zoe in the dining room. Alana can’t make it.”

Just then, Jared comes in, shoes in his hand. He sees Evan and does this awkward half-wave as he sets them down by the door. 

“Happy Thanksgiving. Is that a thing?”

Evan shrugs. “It can be.”

“Fair warning,” I say, “Everything at dinner tonight will probably be at least a little inedible. But I can sneak a bunch of stuff upstairs later, though.”

“Fair,” Jared nods in agreement, and Evan tilts his head.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

\--

“So, are you kids excited for tomorrow?” Asks my father as he carves the organic, grass-fed, non-GMO and most definitely free range turkey that must’ve cost a fortune, sitting in the middle of the table.

I wasn’t half wrong about the menu: gluten free stuffing, homemade and likely sugar free cranberry sauce, kale salad, and, mercifully, a hundred per-cent gluten-laden, normal-ass dinner rolls for dad (and everyone else). That’s the one thing she caved on. And the cranberry sauce is… _surprisingly_ ace. 

“Thank you so much again, for letting us do this,” Zoe says as he serves her. “I think it’s going to be really great, to like, catch a break before school starts again.”

“The week between Thanksgiving Break and the Holidays is one of the hardest,” Jared adds, looking up from his plate (consisting of turkey, cranberry sauce, and about five dinner rolls) and rolling his shoulders. “With midterms. Uh, thanks Zoe. For inviting us. And thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy.” He swallows nervously and Zoe gives him an entertained look. I can practically imagine her voice informing him of the joys of communication with the Murphy parents, the most adult adults that there seem to be out there.

Our mother eats it right up. “Just Cynthia is all right, Jared,” she practically sings. “And you’re welcome. We figured it would be a good way to have some fun while being in nature! I’ve been doing a lot of research, and it’s supposed to be really beneficial for mood.”

Evan, who’s been unsurprisingly quiet, swallows a bite of not-quite stuffing and says, “I’ve, uh, never actually been camping before.”

“Well, these two are pretty much experts,” Larry says, settling down. “We’ve camped at that spot for years. Right?”

“I guess.” It’s obviously not enthusiastic enough, because Zoe shoots a look at me. _Do not fuck this up._

I send a look back at her. _What’s wrong with saying I guess?! I do guess!_ _  
_ “I mean… yeah. We’re pretty expert. Zoe is.”

“There are all of these amazing trails,” Zoe gushes. “And a lake. Hopefully it won’t be too cold, even though it probably will be. And I can bring my guitar, so that we can sing by the campfire…”

 _Is this her plan?_ Or is this just what she’s saying now to appease our parents? Because getting out of the house sounds great, especially away from Cynthia and Larry, _especially_ especially with Evan, but if we’re just going to form some _kumbaya_ circle and talk about our future weddings...

I give her a side-eye, but she doesn’t see.

“By the way, if you guys could send me songs that you like? I’m making a playlist for the drive over. I’ll send it on the group chat later…”

There’s a buzz in my back pocket, and I impulsively pull out my phone to check what it is. I turn the screen to face me, Zoe speaking in the background, and it lights up, displaying the notification, a text.

From an unknown number.

**I know your family is loaded**

**50 bucks a month, and I’ll keep it hush-hush**

Oh _fuck. Oh fuck._

“Connor? No phones at the table, please.”

I look up, suddenly jerked back into reality, and see my mother smiling expectantly at me. I open my mouth to answer, and then glance back down as my phone buzzes again.

**Your choice**

“I, uh,” I start, and my voice comes out as a stammer. I clear my throat. “I’m going to go to the bathroom real quick. I’ll be right back.”

Evan gives me a puzzled look, but I just force myself upright, my knee slamming against the bottom of the table and causing all of the dishes to rattle before I curse and hurry out of the room, Larry’s cry of _language!_ coming from behind me. I faintly hear my mother asking Jared what his interests are to make small talk before I’ve locked myself in the stupid guest bathroom again and am furiously typing in my password.

**I think you have the wrong number.**

**Oh, yeah?**

**I don’t think so.**

**How the fuck did you get it**

**Who fucking told you**

I can feel sweat breaking out across the back of my neck.

I know two things now. This person—whoever it is—knows that it’s me and knows about what happened in May. And I know that whoever it is seems ready and willing to spill it to the whole school which… would be fine. I guess. If it were literally _anything_ else.

This is so much more personal, so much more dangerous. 

**Hello?**

**Hey, motherfucker, you going silent for another three weeks?**

**So.**

**Too much of a price to pay?**

**What do you want from me**

**As I said**

**Other than that, jackass**

**Why are you harassing me, what the hell did I do to you**

No response.

Come on, come on, _come on._

My heart is hammering in my chest, so much so that I sink to my knees and lean against the bathtub, chewing on my lip and trying not to feel the anger spiraling out of my control.

**Listen, you have until February**

**Why so specific?**

**And why that far away?**

**All you need to know is that I have dirt on your sister too**

A new layer of panic dawns on me. Thinking about it now, even if the fact that I went to a rehabilitation center in the beginning of the summer got out, it wouldn’t be _that_ bad. Like, my reputation is already fucked. So what, now people can see me as the psycho and the freak who couldn’t even die right? Big deal.

But Zoe.

_What does this person know about Zoe?_

**What?**

**Hey, what the fuck, do you want to elaborate?**

**ANSWER ME**

I slam the phone down on the tile and suck in a breath.

Maybe it’s a good thing that I’ll spend the weekend without cell service.

I let out the breath, heavy, and turn my phone over. Still no answer. And it stays that way for the rest of the night, even as I keep checking. Like my paranoia already isn't bad enough. All I know is that I need to think long and hard about this. Who got my number, how they know about what happened. Why.

Why, why, why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for a camping extravaganza. And maybe more questions than answers (but that's the way life is, right?)


	19. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan, Connor, Zoe, Alana, and Jared drive to the camping spot. Or: they don't have an angsty-edgy-emo moment while listening to an angsty-edgy-emo song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a side-note, when I was drafting From Where the Sunlight Hits, the camping scene was written as a huge chapter. Literally gargantuan. 10,000 words, to be precise. SOO I'm trying my best to cut it up into reasonable chunks, and that means that the chapters are gonna be a tad longer. Like, nothing over 5,000 words. And there might be like, three Evan chapters in a row because of it. Whoopsss
> 
> Also, I was bored af when I was writing this a few months ago and literally timed a whole portion of the chapter to be read along to "Welcome to the Black Parade" by MCR. Why? I... don't know. It's fun though. Everyone reads at a different pace, so it might be a little too slow or fast, idk. I'd recommend reading through it w/o music first, and then, if you want, start the song on the line "The note rings out through the car..." and read along while listening. It's an expirience, I promise. Very fun to write, too!

When Zoe and Connor pull up to the house to pick me up for the camping trip, it’s still dark outside. 

It’s actually early enough that, for once, I see my mom in the morning; she gives me this warm smile as I walk downstairs, wearing that blue flannel we bought before school started, one that I never wore because the sleeves were too small for my cast, carrying the duffel bag she gave me last night. She’s so happy that it looks like she might cry. 

“Your phone’s charged up?” She asks, putting a hand on my arm. For a minute, she looks just like she did before dad left. Before the worry weighed so heavy on her shoulders, burdened down with work and class and making sure her son is _okay,_ from doing all of this alone. She’s strong, but she’s tired. And I wish that I could say she has _me,_ so she’s not alone, but I can’t tell if I’m a part of the problem or one of the solutions.

Never can.

So instead, I nod at her and try to manage a smile; it’s so early that my teeth hurt. My eyes still haven’t adjusted, and the light’s fragmenting and doing that thing where it’s drawn out into lines.

“If anything happens, Evan, just call me, okay? And if your phone dies, I’m sure Jared will let you use his.”

“Okay, mom. I don’t even think there’s cell service, but like, a landline in the community office—,”

“Do you have sunscreen?”

“No, but—,”

“I have some in the bathroom, let me get it—,”

“Mom, it’s November—,”

“Are you sure? You know how you burn so easily…”

“Really, it’s okay.” Honestly, I just want to get out of the house. She deserves a break. “Please don’t worry—,”

“You can’t ask me not to worry, Ev.” She sighs and turns. “Well. I’m sure it’ll be great. I’m so proud of you, honey, for doing this. I knew it’d just take a little time.”

“Oh. Good?” 

She’s rummaging around in the kitchen, and then she comes out with a neon blue pack, medium sized, but still small enough to carry without it being bulky. “This was your dad’s tent. I found it in the garage… he left it behind...” she sighs and hands it to me. “Evan, you don’t know how happy I am for you.”

Similarly, I don’t know what to say, so I just smile again weakly as she kisses me on the forehead. 

“Do you need breakfast, or…?”

“We’re just going to get something on the way,” I respond, and she nods, and keeps nodding, her head bobbing, as if she’s trying to work through how new and different and _wonderful_ this is.

“Well,” she breathes. The car gives a short honk from the street, signalling that they’re here, and we both look. “I love you, Evan. My boy…” Putting another affectionate hand on my arm, she pulls me into a hug. “Alright. Have fun, okay?”

“I will.” I walk to the door and open it, and Zoe waves from the front seat, the cabin light casting her in a yellow glow. “Love you, mom. _Please,_ don’t worry.”

She stands in the doorway and waves to Zoe, who smiles. I don’t see Connor, so he must be in the back seat. I hope that he’s not, like, _not coming._ Maybe he got sick or something—he seemed fine last night—

“I love you.” She kisses me on the head again, and lest I be drawn back into the safety of the house, I step out into the darkness. “Bye!”

“I’ll see you on Sunday!” 

I walk forward toward the car. The morning smells smoky, and is cool against the fabric of the flannel, nearly too cold for camping. Zoe unlocks the back door, and I open it to see Connor sitting in the middle seat; I slide in against the cold leather and close the door behind me, watching my mom standing in the doorway, smiling.

“Hi, Evan!” Zoe chimes from the front seat, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it’s five in the morning. Maybe she’s already had coffee, or something.

“Morning.” I set the bag down at my feet, and Connor tosses a sleepy grin in my direction.

“Ready for this?” He asks, stretching his legs out over the console. He’s got a black t-shirt on and a fuzzy, Spiderman printed blanket over his knees. Zoe hits his foot.

“Don’t do that, you’re going to get marks on the car.”

“I’m in socks.”

“I think so,” I nod at him, waving to my mom as we drive away. Zoe tosses back a bottle of orange juice, which nearly hits Connor in the face, and he scowls at her. 

“Fucking _watch it_ ,” he groans, putting his feet down. “Jesus, it’s too early for this.” He holds up the bottle. “Do you want this?” I nod, taking it from him, and then he then huddles down in the blanket, drawing his long legs back up onto the seat. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Ok.” Zoe checks to make sure there aren’t any cars coming before she turns onto the main street, and Connor closes his eyes and curls up further. There aren’t any sounds but the road, the soft rushing of him breathing. I look out the window and try not to smile too widely at the fact that I’m _going Camping_ with _Friends._

Zoe yawns from the front seat, but her voice retains its bright, wide-awake sound. “Should we pick up Jared or Alana first?”

“Probably Alana, if we want to preserve the quiet,” I point out, and Connor grumbles affirmatively from next to me, his hair messy and in his eyes.

“Yep.” At a red light, she punches in Alana’s address. She lives in the neighborhood across the way, and, in less than ten minutes, she’s climbing into the car, hair pulled back and glasses shining in the cabin light.

“You can sit in the front seat, if you want,” Zoe says, “Connor’s sleeping.”

She nods and sits down, closing the car door, but suddenly, Connor surges up, startling me enough to splash orange juice on the leg of my jeans. “Wait, no, no, absolutely not. Kleinman is not sitting next to me—,”

“You snooze, you lose, dude.” 

He makes an exaggerated sound of frustration and slumps back down. “Fine. I’m done sleeping. Good morning.” He rubs his eyes and rests his head on his knees. “Remind me why we decided to leave at five- _fucking-_ AM?”

“So that we can spend a whole day at the campground,” explains Alana. “And, by the way, I wanted to let all of you know that I’ve brought all the essentials. You can never be more prepared.”

“You didn’t forget the defibrillator, right?” 

Zoe shoots Connor a look in the rearview mirror as she types in Jared’s address, and he puts his hands up.

“I didn’t bring a defibrillator,” she shoots back. “I’m CPR certified, too, by the way. _But,_ I _did_ bring skewers for the marshmallows.”

“Oh, I thought we’d just use sticks, or something.” Zoe admits, rolling forward. 

“And contract some disease? Not on my watch.”

“Actually, you know that it’s been proven that using sticks from the woods to roast things on is safe? Because the fire heats it up, and at the same time, it’s true that most harmful diseases for humans aren’t found in straight-up nature…” Alana looks at me, lost for words. Connor looks subtly amazed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to try to correct you—”

“Actually, Evan, that’s really interesting.” She says, straightening her glasses. “I... didn’t know that.”

“Yeah—I, uh, learned it from some book a long time ago…”

“I’m impressed.” Connor says, elbowing me, and I just laugh a little, nervous, and take a drink from the orange juice.

“As long as you brought a tent, you’re good, Alana.” Zoe says, turning onto the interstate, and she goes quiet. I look up, and her mouth is in a small _O._ “..You did bring a tent, right?” 

“I… don’t have one.” She grimaces. “I thought that we were going to sleep.. Like, under the sky.”

We stop at a stop sign, and Zoe waves it off. “Don’t worry about it. Connor and I both have huge tents, so you can just share with me.”

“Thanks.” She clears her throat, a little disheartened at the fact that she wasn’t prepared for anything after all. “Well,” she picks up. “I, for one, am excited. You know that being in the wilderness is supposed to have great benefits on your motivation and intellect?”

Connor groans again. “ _Five in the morning,_ Alana. Can we wait at least til’ food before talking? _”_

We pull up to Jared’s house, and Zoe honks. “Well, it’s true. And I’m sure that after this weekend, we’ll all have much clearer heads for studying.” 

A quiet settles over the car, but after a few minutes of Jared not showing up, Zoe lets out a breath. “Does someone want to go knock on the door?”

“ _No.”_

“Can you text him, Ev? My phone’s in my duffel bag.”

“Sure.” I open my phone and message Jared that _we’re here._

Two more minutes pass.

Zoe looks as if she’s resisting the urge to bash her head against the steering wheel. “He probably overslept,” I say, and Alana nods. Connor looks almost as if he’s falling asleep again, his eyelashes fluttering a little. Then the door to the house bursts open, and Jared comes out in a t-shirt and sweatpants, a blanket around his shoulders, and a backpack in his hands. He comes down to the car and Connor throws his head back in annoyance and unlocks the door.

“Hey, guys,” He says, loudly jostling into the car. “Sorry. My alarm didn’t go off.”

“You are aware that this is a weekend-long trip, right?” Alana asks, eyeing his backpack.

“Oh, yeah. No, I’m good.” He pats the bag. “Just got the essentials. Phone, clothes, erotic Harry Potter fanfiction…” He laughs at his own joke, revealing the smallest gap between his teeth. He’s had it since he was little; kids on the playground used to make fun of him for it, but I guess he just never really cared.

“Jesus Christ,” Connor mutters, “This is happening.”

“What? You can borrow it, if you want.”

Alana rolls her eyes and turns forward, and Zoe finishes putting her hair in a ponytail. “What do you think for breakfast guys, McDonalds?”

“Yes,” Jared says, leaning forward a little. “I want a McMuffin.”

“That sounds good,” I say, because, though I usually have to order out when mom’s at work and hasn’t gotten groceries yet, leaving the money on the porch and trying not to overthink something as simple as _thanks_ as the delivery person knocks on the door in confusion, I haven’t had McDonalds in ages, really.

“As long as none of you guys get anything with berries in it.”

Zoe laughs a little and turns back onto the interstate. “Okay, guys, so, because it takes like two hours to get to the camping spot, I have that road trip playlist, with all of your suggestions?” When no-one says anything, she leads on with, “Does anyone want to hear it?”

Jared nods. “Did you make sure to put—,”

“If you’re asking me if I included the Thomas the Train theme song? The answer is no.”

Connor lets out a sudden, crazed laugh, dimples showing. “Oh, God, this is going to be amazing. A whole weekend with _you guys_ . This is going to be _amazing._ ”

“It is!” Alana perks up. “In fact, I did some research and came up with a loose itinerary of things we could do.” Realizing that everyone’s given her a simultaneous look, she giggles, nervous, and amends, “Well, I mean, it’s really just a list of ideas. Not a schedule or anything.”

Jared lets out a breath. “I thought you were about to ask me to go on a timed bird watching hike.”

“Actually, bird watching _was_ on the list…”

“I’m kind of excited to see all of the trees,” I say, trying to participate in the conversation. “I mean, It’s going to be so nice… being around them and… stuff.”

There’s a nasal laugh from Jared, but Connor just nudges me again. “You know, Evan’s kind of a tree expert. Can I quiz you?”

“Well, actually—,”

“What’s the scientific name of an oak tree?”

I sigh. “Well, like… the genus is ‘Quercus’. It depends on the specifics of what _kind_ of oak it is to name it further...”

Jared gives me an unsurprised look, and Zoe shifts lanes to turn into a McDonalds drive-through.

“See?” Connor asks. “Who even knows stuff like that? Amazing.”

“I bet you’re going to do really great with college essays, Evan,” Alana says. “They love stuff like that, like random facts that you can tie back to personal experiences.”

“They do?” Zoe sounds skeptical.

Jared snorts. “Waitwaitwait, how do you include _Quercus_ in a college essay? ‘ _Ah, yes, in conclusion, I’d like to state that it is important to analyze the stupidity of your actions, like when I was sixteen and fell from a mighty Quercus, breaking my arm and therefore inhibiting my ability to—,”_

“Okay,” Zoe interrupts mercifully as she pulls up to order. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek. The cast is off, the arm unbroken, but when I think about it, it starts aching. Like when your skin starts itching when you talk about mosquitoes?. Connor must see the weird look on my face, and he bumps his knee into mine. “What do you guys want? Jared wants a McMuffin.” 

“Yes.”

“I want one too,” Connor says, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders and scooting away from Jared. It’s kind of a failed attempt because the backseat is small and his knees touch both Jared’s and mine either way. 

“Can I get a Hash Brown? I can pay for it…” I start rummaging around in the duffle bag, but Zoe just waves her hand.

“Don’t worry about it. Alana?”

Alana looks… distressed. “I’ve actually never been here before. What’s good?”

Jared’s mouth drops open and his eyes go as big as saucers. “You’ve… never had McDonalds…?”

“Just get a McMuffin,” Connor says. “They’re good.”

“What is it?”

“It’s heaven on a biscuit.”

“That doesn’t help me, Jared.”

Zoe turns. “It’s basically just ham, egg, and cheese on a biscuit.”

“Is that not what I said?” Jared shakes his head.

“That sounds good.” she says, voice full of trepidation, as if she’s worried that it’ll turn out to be something strange and unprecedented.

Zoe pulls up to the ordering window and orders four McMuffins and a Hash Brown and then drives up further when the car in front of her moves. I take a sip of orange juice and try to ignore the fact that Connor’s kind of leaning into me. 

“Anyways, you have a lot of opportunities for scholarships when it comes to knowing facts like that, Evan.” Alana straightens the shoulders of her sweater primly and smiles at me. It’s a kind smile, and doesn’t seem practiced, like her smiles usually do.

“Thanks.”

She suggests getting together a group to help each other write college essays for scholarships, and then proceeds to drill Connor, Jared, and I on how we’re doing with our SAT studies. Jared gives a weak thumbs up. Connor just shakes his head, smiling.

When the McDonalds employee gives Zoe the food, she passes the Egg McMuffins around and drives back off to merge onto the interstate. The car is filled with the smell of fried food, and conversation lulls as it trundles along on the road, Connor’s knee pressed into mine.

I’ve always liked being in a car when it’s dark out; you’d think that it’d be anxiety inducing—the feeling of seclusion, the darkness on the road… that is, until you experienced it the way I do. The cabin light is off, and so the only lights are from the headlights, the streetlights, and the faint glow of the control panel. I can see the shapes of Alana and Zoe, and the silhouette of Connor’s leg without turning my head. When I look out the window, the darkness is peaceful and quiet, and the windows of hospitals and restaurants and the University campus are all lit up.

Connor falls back asleep. I can tell because, after he finishes the McMuffin, he curls back up under the blanket and, after a while, he doesn’t move, his breathing becoming deeper and slower. When the car jostles, he kind of falls into me, but I don’t mind because he is sleeping, after all. I lean my head against the car door window and close my eyes and try to think of a time before meeting everyone when I was this happy. 

I can only think of once: when I was in the third grade, I won first place at the science fair for my project on why the leaves change color. Mom helped me with it, drew this beautiful lettering… afterwards, we went out for sundaes at a place near the forest where I fell from the tree, and she told me that I deserved it, for all the hard work I’d put into it. And I really believed it.

With my eyes closed, the sky transitions, first from grey, to pink, and I open them to realize that I’ve nodded off a little. I turn my head and Connor’s still slouched against me, his cheek against my shoulder; Jared’s on his phone, and Alana’s scribbling in a notebook. Zoe bobs her head to what’s playing quietly on the radio.

As if he senses my movement, Connor takes a deep breath in through his nose and shifts. He realizes where he is and bolts upright, staring at me. His face is caught in between a look of fear and one of questioning. He quirks his eyebrow.

I just shrug at him.

“Are we there yet?” Jared says, eyes trained on his phone. 

“We’re still about an hour out.”

Connor rubs his eyes and inhales, still looking at me. I can’t tell if he’s half-asleep, or just thinking too hard, or both. I think I may feel the same way. I’d shrink away, but, backed against the morning sky, the eye contact doesn’t feel as if it’s bearing into my skin. It’s nice to look at someone and not be afraid of it. To be so caught up that the roughness of the road turns into a kind of drifting feeling. So I look, and I keep looking. And he does too.

It’s Zoe who breaks our eye contact by announcing, “Alright, I’ve waited long enough. Everyone, wake up. I want to play my playlist.”

He drags his gaze from mine to look forward, past the console and out of the windshield. “I’m awake.”

“I am too,” I say, trying not to yawn. 

Jared lets out an extremely loud “FUCK!” and everyone immediately turns to him. He’s gripping his phone, squinting. “There was a Mewtwo back at that rest stop back there. And I didn’t click in time. _Damn it,_ Zoe, can we please go back?”

Alana gives him a look. “A what?”

“You know? Like from Pokemon—”

“I’m shuffling the playlist!” Zoe says with an air of great majesty. She passes the phone to Alana, who plugs the cord in, and then taps the green Spotify button with intention. Everyone goes silent in anticipation, even Jared, who previously was talking about _Pokemon._

The note rings out through the car, so quiet at first that we barely miss it. And then Zoe turns it up, and we all hear the successive notes, ringing piano that could possibly be the most normal teenage song I actually can recognize. Jared lets out a noise of frustration, Alana scrunches up her eyebrows in confusion, but Connor gives a cry of victory. Zoe’s grinning. She rolls down all of the windows even though it’s pretty cold outside, turns it way up. Jared makes a louder grunt, and Alana puts a hand to her glasses as if she’s afraid they’ll fly off.

“I told you it’d be worth putting this on the playlist!” Connor shouts over the wind and the music, and Zoe just laughs, squeezing the wheel. It’s very loud, and I stick my head out of the window because the morning air is cold and it’ll help me to wake up.

“I knew it would, I was just being difficult!”

“Why this?” Jared agonizes, but Connor’s grinning full out, his hair blowing in the wind, dimples showing, nothing like who I ever thought he was. He’s just a normal guy, air drumming to My Chemical Romance on what quite possibly may be the best day of my life.

“Because! It’s the epitome of everything that never made sense!”

“What the hell does that even mean?!”

Connor shrugs. “Whatever you want it to!”

“ _One day, I’ll leave you, a phantom…”_ Zoe sings. I can see her smiling face in the rearview mirror.

I feel like the time is right to say something that’s been on my mind, when everyone’s distracted. _“Guys,”_ I say, but, realizing that my voice is inaudible over the roar of the wind, I raise it. _“I just wanted to say—You guys are—this is great. You’re great_.”

I feel Connor’s hand on my knee. “ _I second that statement.”_

I stick my head back out the window. The world passes by in flashes of green and morning-sky, that subdued blue color. I stick my tongue out to taste the air, and then feel incredibly stupid and close my mouth before anyone sees me.

The song picks up. It’s not the slow ballad it seems to be, and even if I’ve heard it possibly a million times before, it always takes me by surprise, with that guitar that always reminded me of that Queen song. The sound is cacophonous, wonderful, so loud that my ears are buzzing. 

Zoe and Connor suddenly are both screaming the lyrics. Zoe’s hair is flying in one million directions. Even Jared’s kind of grinning at this point. Alana looks bewildered, but amused.

“He said, _son, when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?”_

There’s a dead space of ringing guitar for about a second before there’s a crash of drums and the song takes off like a shot. Connor kicks against the console with his sock feet and Jared’s head-banging, his glasses flying off of his face. “Oh my,” I think I hear Alana say, her face perfectly conveying the textbook definition of astonishment.

“ _What, have you never heard teen punk music?”_ Jared screams.

“ _What?”_

_“I SAID, HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD—,”_

“Alana probably listens to Mozart for fun!” Connor adds.

She blinks. “ _Mozart is fun!_ ”

“That and Hamilton?”

_“Jared—!”_

Zoe turns it up even louder. “ _Through it all, the rise and fall—,”_

She’s broken off by Jared’s wild laugh. Both him and Connor have collapsed into it, and I can feel myself wanting to be pulled in. I think Jared went through a phase in like, the seventh grade, where all he listened to was this song. He knows all the words. I heard it enough while failing at Smash Bros in his basement that _I_ even remember some of the lyrics, which feels like a win.

“ _AND THOUGH YOU’RE DEAD AND GONE—YOUR MEMORY—CARRY ON!”_ Connor wheezes in between laughter. His face is red, his eyes scrunched up. Alana’s gripping onto the hand bar, eyes almost as wide as the round rims of her glasses. I don’t know what to do. Jumping in feels kind of awkward. I bite down on the inside of my cheek, and I taste blood, but everyone else is smiling, and I kind of am, too.

Zoe whips her head to the beat, her shoulders bouncing, and puts a hand out to gently push Alana’s shoulder. She let’s go of the hand bar and, though she still looks confused, starts nodding her head, a little insecure. It’s obvious that she doesn’t know the song, but that doesn’t matter I guess, because soon she’s bouncing to the beat just like everyone else. Jared lets out a whoop and sticks his whole chest out of the window. 

“ _Get back in you idiot, you’re going to get killed!”_ Zoe shrieks, but it’s not unkind, and she’s laughing, and Jared’s laughing, and everything feels very strange.

The chorus rips through the car again, built on crescendos and rapid drum beats. My heart’s pounding. My first instinct would be to panic a little at it, I know, but something about Zoe and Alana, Connor and Jared… it feels different. Endearing. 

We all yelp a little a little as the car swerves (it really is a tiny swerve and there aren’t any other cars on the road), and this deters Alana for only a second before she dissolves into nervous laughter. I put my head back into the car, my face cold. Zoe doesn’t seem to know the words at this point, and she’s just _Oh, oh_ -ing at the top of her lungs, but Connor does.

He’s singing them, and he sounds good singing them, and it really isn’t fair that someone should sound so good while singing such a throwaway road trip song. His teeth are showing, straight and white in the pale light, and he’s settled into a rhythmic kicking of the console that has Alana trying to smack his feet away. Jared’s in full music video mode. His glasses have disappeared under all of our bags.

Connor suddenly whips his head to me; his hair is blowing, just like Zoe’s, a wonderful mess. “ _Take a look at me, ‘cause I could! Not! Care! At—,” gasp, “Do or die, you’ll never make me! Because the world will never take my heart—,”_ He’s taking deep, ragged breaths. I’ve never seen his face look so animated. When he’s looking at me, it’s like I have no choice but to smile. “Oh, my god, your hair!” He laughs out, pointing a little at mine. “The wind—,”

“Yours too!” Facing the window, it’s blowing behind him, keeping his face clear. It’s terribly beautiful, the happiness of it. I stick my hands in my hair and feel that the wind has blown it into twice its size. 

“ _Come on!”_ He shouts, the bridge ramping up, the chorus imminent. That electric guitar is back, sweeping and jagged and crisp, the color red.

I’m whispering the words, just faintly. His eyes go wide, as if he’s surprised that I know them, but that quickly resides as the realization that he’s gotten me to sing takes precedence. “YES!” Jared’s air-guitaring. It’d all be very nerve-wracking if I weren’t with the best people I’ve ever met. 

Connor sucks in a huge breath. “ _I’m just a man, I’m not a hero!”_

 _“I! DON’T! CARE!”_ The car screams as a mostly complete unison, and I think my voice is in there, too. I don’t know the words to the chorus other than _carry on,_ but that’s enough, really. Zoe lets out a wordless scream, just a release of energy. Alana is laughing so hard that her glasses are fogging up. Connor’s gripping my knee, and he’s swiping at his eyes, back bent, as if he’s not used to the weight of this much joy. It’s screaming and laughing and crying and floating and being and I’ve never felt this way before and Connor, and Connor, and Connor. Who knew someone could be so real?

The song falls into this amazing overlay of all the verses and bridge and chorus, and Connor starts screaming too, and then Jared just yells out, “ _YIPPEE KI-YAY, MOTHERFUCKERS!”_ and Zoe snorts so hard that she puts a hand to her throat in pain, and even when the song ends, dissolving into the tapping of a drum, the feeling sits and settles over all of us, who are breathless and smiling. My cheeks hurt from it.

“ _Fuck!”_ Connor yells out, but not in anger or frustration. It’s like closure.

The car drives along. Zoe closes the windows and blasts the heater; everyone’s hair except Alana’s is puffy and wind-blown—somehow, her perfect braids have emerged unscathed from the fray. The next song starts, and it’s not nearly as fun because only Jared and Zoe know it, but it’s fun in the sense that I’m sitting in a car with people who want me to be there. And that’s enough, really. Enough to kind of wipe away everything, if just for a moment. 

To be so chaotic that it’s all gone still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg it's gonna start getting kinda gay soon y'all  
> I can't wait
> 
> can you tell I got like 10% sleep


	20. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to your Masterclass: Connor Murphy teaches basic camping skills. Free of charge.

We get to the campsite at around eight—Zoe says that it only took us two hours to get here, and we did leave at five, but time always seems to get lost on road trips, left behind as a side-effect of existing in the in-between places for too long. 

We get out of the car and stretch, and the November sky is beautiful and bright above us, not cloudless, but spotted with them, fluffy and kind looking.

“You gonna stop asking are we there yet, now?” Zoe asks, giving a pointed look to Jared in the back seat who’s closing up his DS. The fact that he even brought it is quintessential Jared—I have a faint memory of him sneaking it with him on a second grade field trip to the American History museum. He’s had that thing  _ forever.  _ It’s a wonder that it still works.

“Debatable.” He’s wrapping the cord of the power bank around his hand in an attempt to keep it neat, but he must give up because instead he just shoves the remainder of the line into his backpack and zips it up with finality.  
I unbuckle my seat belt as Zoe turns off the engine and the cabin light comes on, Connor gathering the Spiderman blanket into a rope and draping it over his shoulders next to me.

“It’s not too far, is it?” Alana asks. “Should I change into my hiking shoes now?”

Connor clears his throat. “It’s not  _ close,  _ but it’s not an uphill hike.”

To get to the camping site, we have to hike for about a half-hour. After we get all of our stuff, Connor knotting up his sneakers and Jared shouldering his backpack of luggage, Zoe locks the car and we start up the trailhead. Soon, we’re deep in the woods, surrounded by conifers, with leaves crunching underfoot.

“It smells like a Bath and Body Works candle in here,” Jared remarks fifteen minutes into the walk. When Connor gives him a weird look, he just puts his hands up. “What? My mom buys them. It smells like Fresh Balsam out here.”

Alana takes in a deep breath, disregarding the random scrap of conversation in favor of starting a new one. “Imagine spending Christmas in these woods… surrounded by nature. It’d be snowy… you could probably ice skate on the lake…”

Zoe adjusts the guitar case on her back. “Oh, yeah, families do it every year. We usually would come in October, though, so I don’t know if the lake actually freezes deep enough to skate. We had family friends who’d always spend New Year’s up here, though—remember the Rowells, Connor?”

“I’m trying to forget,” He grunts. I can tell that he’s cold in his t-shirt from the way that he keeps pulling the blanket tighter around him. My arms are covered and  _ I’m  _ cold. I can’t imagine how it’s going to be once night falls. “Remember Emma?”

She cackles, her head to the sky. “Oh, my  _ god.  _ She was in love with you.”

“Poor Emma,” he sighs. “Little did she know.”

“But they threw great parties, remember? Like the Halloween party, and they gave us whole bags of Reese’s?”

He just shrugs. “I don’t know. They were okay. The candy was pretty great, though.”

“So you guys have been camping here since you were kids?” I ask, and Zoe, who’s in front of me, starts walking backwards to face me, occasionally glancing back to make sure she doesn’t run into Alana.

“Yeah. It’s the best—there’s tons of trails, and the camping spots are usually really clean, and there are bathrooms with showers, like I said—and they have hot water—and the lake is huge, too. You can rent canoes.”

Jared’s eyes get wide. “Canoes?”

“If you think I’m getting into a canoe with you, Kleinman, you are sorely mistaken. I don’t plan on taking a surprise swim in the glacial fucking lake.”

Jared looks at Connor, jaw slack, a playful expression on his face. “Jesus. Tell me how you really feel.”

Zoe stops for a minute to pull up one of her socks. “The water’s not actually that cold, remember? It’s pretty average, actually, for fall.”

“I don’t know how to swim,” I say, and Connor waves it off. 

“It’s okay, it’s not very deep.”

“You’re not actually suggesting that we go swimming in the middle of November,” Alana says, shaking her head. “That’s a great way to catch a cold.”

“It’ll be fine. Zoe and I did it all the time.”

“I did get the flu that one time, remember…?”

“Correlation doesn’t imply causation.”

She makes a noise and shakes her head. “No! No smarts allowed, I’m trying not to think for this whole weekend.”

“Me neither,” I add, “I’m sick of thinking.”

Jared nods. “Me neither.” Alana turns to him and gives him a look as if to say  _ you? thinking?  _ and he childishly sticks his tongue out at her. 

“I just want this to be s’mores, scary stories… I don’t want it to be memories. I have problems with that sometimes, where I feel like something’s over before it begins? I just want to be in the  _ moment.”  _ Zoe lets out a cleansing breath. Her ponytail is dark blonde, lighter than Connor’s, and dappled with the sunlight shining through the pine needles. 

“Aye, aye, captain.” Connor salutes her, and she laughs. “This will be the most reckless, real, and non-thinking weekend you’ve ever had.”

I bite down on my cheek, the conversation fading into the background. I hope that he’s not going to make us do something crazy, like cliff jumping, or cave exploring. I heard a story once about a couple of friends who were cliff jumping… when one of them didn’t go quickly enough, she got pushed, and when she hit the water, she broke, like, every bone in her body because she didn’t hit it  _ right. What if Jared pushes me?  _ He’s like that. The inside of my mouth flares with pain, but I barely even notice it. What if a bear comes into the camp? What if I get stuck inside of my tent, like, if the zipper breaks? Suddenly I realize  _ why  _ I haven’t gone camping before.

I’m jarred out of my thoughts by Connor, who bumps his shoulder against mine. I stumble a little, but regain my balance, looking at him.

“I can tell you're biting down on your cheek. You should stop that.”

I loosen my jaw, my face smarting in relief. “Sorry, I—,”

He waves a hand. “Don’t be, I was just saying. We’re here in the moment, right?”

“Right.” 

“You know how clear the stars are out here?” Zoe goes on. “You can see all of them. You can see the fucking milky way. Have you ever seen the milky way, Evan?”

When I shake my head, she grins. “Just wait. You’re going to lose your mind.”

The conversation continues as the trail curves uphill, and a few more minutes of woodland lead us to a small clearing, framed with trees. Zoe throws her arms out in a  _ ta-da!  _ gesture, and Jared leans over, panting a little.

“This is it?” Alana hesitates, looking out over the clearing. The dirt is a cool shade of brown, dotted with the occasional shrub, but, otherwise, it looks kind of barren. The thin autumn sunshine adds an oversaturated glow to the scene, but the towering pines are so tall that the sky is pretty much blocked out. Overall, it seems a little anticlimactic.

“And we have it all to ourselves!” Zoe beams, undeterred. “Don’t worry, Alana, once everything gets set up, this place looks amazing.” She points to the three trails leading away from the clearing. “Okay, so this trail leads to the bathroom and showers, this one’s to the lake. The one on the left I’m pretty sure just leads to a bunch of trailheads.”

Connor makes his way to the left of the clearing and drops his bags straight to the ground, stretching wide. “I claim this spot. This spot is now mine.”

Zoe steps forward, and at the treeline, sets down her duffel bag and guitar case. Alana wanders over to her, looking nervous. Jared puts his backpack on the ground and walks off in the direction of the bathrooms. 

The only real place left to set up is to the right of the clearing, and so I head over there and lower my bags to the ground. The tent, when I unroll it, is kind of dirty, but the nylon still retains its neon blue color; I sit there for a minute and stare at the fabric, wondering how in the world you put up a tent. And then I keep staring, like maybe the answer will materialize in front of my eyes. I would look it up on my phone, but I don’t want to waste my battery because then I’ll have to use the battery pack, and if  _ that  _ dies, I’d have to borrow Jared’s, and at his rate, it’ll be dead by noon, anyway.

I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Connor walking up. He’s put his wind-tangled hair into a bun, and must’ve dug a dark blue hoodie out from his bag, because he has it on, open over his shirt, the Spiderman blanket abandoned. “Need help?”

I just nod, and he sits on his heels next to me. He looks at the nylon for a moment, and then squints up at me. “Where are the tent-poles?”

“...tent poles…?”

“Y’know, like the… thingies. The little poles you stick into the lining to make the tent stand up?”

The fabric is dull on the ground. It’s the only thing that mom gave me was the rolled up tent. 

“There aren’t any pegs, either?” He sees the alarmed look on my face and leans forward, searching in the fabric as if maybe the supplies have gotten lost in the fabric. 

“Oh, god,” I mutter without really meaning to. “I knew this was going to be a bad idea.”

“No, don’t freak out about it,” He says quickly. “Listen, I mean, the tents that Zoe and I brought are, like, huge dome tents. I’m sure we have extra supplies.” He stands up and heads over to Zoe and Alana, who’s tent is half set up already. They really are huge—probably big enough to fit closer to three people. I trail behind him, trying to ignore the dread in the back of my throat.

“Do you have extra tent poles or pegs?” Connor asks, and Zoe turns from where she’s on the ground, hitting one of the stakes.

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Can you check? Evan doesn’t have either.”

Alana leans over to open up the bag that the tent was in, and she rummages around for a minute before she pulls out a handful of pegs, and two extra poles. “These are the only ones,” she says, frowning. 

I bite my cheek. I don’t want to call my mom—she’ll just start worrying even more. She’ll try to drive out to the spot, even if I tell her not to. I don’t want to be upset about this, but it’s hard not to spiral into it because this is exactly the kind of thing that I thought might happen in the back of my head. Exactly why I shouldn’t’ve gone on this trip. 

Connor hits his shoulder against mine. “You know what?” He says to me as we walk back to my spot. “You saw how big the tents are, just share with me.” He smiles at my surprised expression. “What? I mean, I’m not going to let you sleep, like, on the ground. But also, yeah, tents are kind of still sleeping on the ground, but you know what I mean…”

“We were supposed to bring  _ tents?”  _ I hear Jared say from across the campsite. We all look at him, picking up his tiny backpack.

“Well, we  _ are  _ camping _ ,”  _ Zoe calls back, and he shakes his head.

“Yeah, but I thought that it was going to be a sleeping-under-the-stars scenario.”

“Why does everyone think that?” Zoe says, looking at Alana. “I didn’t accidentally say that, did I?”

“You didn’t. But I haven’t actually gone camping before… I just figured.”

Jared nods. “Yep. But don’t worry. I brought blankets and a pillow and a towel to lay on. That’s all I need. While all of you are in your fancy tents, I’ll have the perfect view of,” He looks up, and finishes half-heartedly with “...the trees.”

Zoe’s voice comes muffled from where she and Alana are threading a pole through the fabric. “Connor, let him bunk with you.”

His eyes go wide. “Evan’s already bunking with me.”

A moment as they finish sliding the pole into the tent, and Zoe leans up, pushing a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. “So? They’re huge.”

“The plan was to not share with anyone,” Connor grits, squinting, and then turns quickly to me. “No offense.”

“So? It gets down to like, I don’t know, the forties. The tents are insulated.”

Jared crosses his arms, suddenly seeming kind of apprehensive. “Really, it’s fine, Zoe.”

Alana’s head perks up from behind the back of the tent. “You shouldn’t sleep outside when it’s that cold out. You’ll get sick. Really.”

“It’s not that big—,”

She stands up, dusting off her hands. “It is. We’re supposed to be here for a full weekend.”

I look at Connor, who looks dead to the world, and then at Jared, who has a hand on the back of his neck, his eyes still on Alana, conflicted, and I say, “Connor, I can trade places with Jared and sleep outside if it’s too crowded—,”

“No—,” he says, quick, and then, slower, “No, it’s fine. Jared you can… fuckin’... share with us. But please don’t be on that DS all night, or talk, or… anything.”

He picks up his backpack. “You don’t want me to do anything.”

“That’s favorable, yeah.”

They look at each other, and Jared gets that look that he gets sometimes. The look he gets when that aloof resolve sets in. He walks over to Connor and I, still crossing his arms. “Thanks. You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

I finish rolling up the tent and try not to look at either of them as I follow Connor to the left side of the clearing. I’m not sure whether to apologize, or thank him, or both. It’s really kind of him to offer me a spot in his tent when he could’ve slept alone—what if I snore?  _ What if I drool? What if I accidentally kick him in my sleep?! _

“But you have to help me set up the tent,” Connor says, turning to Jared and I.

“I don’t know anything about setting up tents,” Jared responds.

He shrugs. “Well. Welcome to your Masterclass. Connor Murphy teaches camping basics. For free.” He pulls the tent out of his duffel. “Lucky you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a tad short. Again, dealing with the weird sized chapter chunks from my colossal camping cache. Alliteration?yes ma'am.


	21. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's gather round the campfire and tell our depressing life stories! Our d-e-p-r-e-s-s-ing l-i-f-e stories!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one. Stretch! Get some water! And enjoy!
> 
> TW for mentions of self-harm, implied and referenced past suicide attempts, and other Dear Evan Hansen angst. Y'know what you're getting into, but read safely!
> 
> The song at the end is "Bloom" by the Paper Kites. Listen for bonus points!

The day passes in an autumn-colored blur—the Friday morning slowly transitioning into the pastel grey-green of midday, the smell of dry leaves and crisp wind filling the air. After the campsite is mostly set up, Zoe leads us on a hike up the Northernmost trail, which is tiring but not so much as to be unenjoyable. By the time we get back, Alana volunteers to start the fire and, when night falls, we’re all sitting around it, enjoying its warmth in the otherwise chilly darkness, roasting marshmallows for s’mores and cubes of cheddar cheese that Alana was genius enough to bring.

“Has anyone else read  _ Looking for Alaska?”  _ Zoe asks, leaning back on her elbows. “The book by John Green.”

Only Alana replies with a nod, and Zoe grins mischievously.

“We should play  _ Best Day/Worst Day. _ ”

“What’s _ Best Day/Worst Day _ ?” Jared says, mouth full of marshmallow.

“Basically, we all go in a circle and describe the best day of our lives. Then the worst. And that’s that.”

“What’s the point?” Connor scuffs the dirt with his shoe and turns his skewer, though his marshmallow is nearly black. He’s been kind of out of it all day. It’s a shot in the dark to say, but it feels like he’s annoyed with Jared— _ Jared’s _ clearly on edge, too. I can’t see why, because it’s weird to think that Connor’s still upset over Jared staying in the tent with us.

But what do I know? I look to where he’s sitting next to me and examine his profile, thinking about the day in the car back in September, jazz in the background, the sunset limning the edges of his face. I’d tried to draw him afterwards. Maybe I’ll do that again.

It wasn’t a solid success when I’d first sketched him, but now… it’s safe to say that I’ve had a lot of practice. My sketchbook is like a Connor portfolio. It’s embarrassing, yeah, but Zoe and Alana are in there too, so. I think Jared’s even sketched once or twice. I’m not used to drawing real people, but it’s helped to sharpen up my skill with likenesses.

Needless to say. The sketchbook has gone from ‘off limits’ to ‘absolute confidential government material, must sign an NDA to view.’

“Well.. in the book, it’s a drinking game,” Zoe admits, “But we can just play it for fun? Or, like, have the winners—the people who have the best or worst days—not have to clean up on Sunday, or something.”

Jared swallows his marshmallow and immediately reaches for another. “Yeah, okay. I’ll play.”

“Sure,” I say, and Zoe grins.

“Great. Who wants to go first?”

“Actually, Zo,” Connor cuts in. “I came prepared..” He stands up, and we all watch him as he bites the marshmallow off of the end of the skewer with painful precision. It’s enough to make me flinch, but he doesn’t even blink, just casts the hot poker aside, chews, and rummages around in the tent for a second before coming back. With a bottle in his hand.

“Oh, fuck _ you,”  _ Jared says in awe, and Zoe’s eyes widen approximately to the size of a full moon.

“No way. How.”

“I have my ways,” he shrugs, and Zoe lets out an astonished laugh.

“That’s not an answer—,”

Alana and I have cast each other a look across the circle, and though the firelight is reflecting in her glasses and I can’t see her eyes fully, the message is clear enough. The faint panic is there.

“Uhhm. You know that’s  _ illegal.  _ Right?” She starts, wrapping her arms around herself.

Connor settles back down next to me and puts the bottle down in front of him; it’s a huge glass wine bottle, the inside shining faintly pink in the light of the fire. I stare at it, feeling anxiety coiling in my stomach. I’ve never had alcohol—that’s a given, right? I don’t think I seem like the type, even.

This bucket list was about the spirit of exploration, or whatever. 

Is this as far as it’s going to go?

“No one has to drink if they don’t want to,” he says, and cracks his knuckles. “And you don’t have to like, fucking  _ chug  _ it either.”

Zoe must see the look on both Alana and I’s faces and adds, “and it’s not like anyone’s driving. And no getting drunk. We won’t. Okay?”

I nod slowly, but Connor frowns. “Is that not the point?”

“The point,” Jared says, “Is not the drunkenness we achieve in the end, but the truths that are unveiled along the way…”

“This is so dumb,” Zoe suddenly says, “Connor, why did you bring that?”

He shrugs again. “Fun?”

Alana shakes her head. “Your idea of  _ fun  _ does not align with mine.”

“Does your idea of fun align with anyone’s?” He bites back, and she flinches. 

“Christ, Connor!” Zoe calls out. “Stop! Just—,” she lets out a breath. “Listen, you can drink all you want, no one’s stopping you. Can we just—play the game?”

Connor looks to me, though at this point, I’ve zoned out a tiny bit, thinking about the drinking. His eyes pull me back and I get to feel that nice sensation of adrenaline jolting through my system as I suddenly wonder if he’s expecting me to say something. But—no, he just looks tired. I tilt my head, and then feel like a dog who’s seen a squirrel, but he tilts his head too, and it makes me laugh. I then look away to see Jared staring at me with each eyebrow at an opposing extreme on his forehead.

He snickers. I feel my face heat up and stare into the fire instead.

“Sorry, Alana,” Connor says, “That was out of line.”

“It’s fine,” she grimaces, shaking her head. “I’ll just go. We’re doing best day first, right?” When Zoe gives her a nod, she continues. “Okay. I think that the best day of my life was when I was twelve years old.

“It was sometime in February, I think. I had qualified for the National Spelling Bee Championship—”

“Typical,” Jared interrupts, and Zoe glares.

“ _ Why is everyone ragging on Alana for being smart? Are you smart, Jared?” _

“I—,”

She silences him with a stare and he leans back, crossing his arms, his expression considering.

(It’s horrible because he  _ is  _ smart. Unfairly smart. It’s like he can just show up to class and not take any notes, and then ace the final. It’s horrendously backwards, but that’s just the way that it is, right?)

“Oh, I assure you that the NSBC is anything but typical,” Alana says matter-of-factly. “When I was there last year, there were students dealing drugs that enhance memory and cognition? The police had to search all the dorms, it took all day.”

Jared shrugs, smug. “I stand corrected.”

“Anyways. I had just qualified for NSBC, and, a week later, in the mail, I got the plane ticket. I just remember holding it in my hand and thinking that, finally, all the work had paid off. I had been practicing for months and months. I never thought I’d actually qualify… When I got that ticket, I ran my finger over the barcode, and read the terminal information over and over. My parents took me to get sushi that night, and when we got home, I packed my bag a month early.” 

“Did you win?” Connor asks. He’s been holding the hot poker in the fire, and now has taken it out, holding the glowing red tip way too close to his face for comfort. I desperately want to reach out and smack it away from him, but he sets it back down before I can. 

“No,” she sighs. “I misspelled ‘ _ succedaneum’. _ But it didn’t matter, I guess.”

“That’s pretty good,” I say, and she smiles at me, the firelight reflecting in her glasses.

“Thanks, Evan.” She looks at Zoe, next to her. “Do you want to go?”

“Sure.” She takes in a deep breath. “I’ve thought about this a lot. My best day… My best day was the day that… okay, this is going to sound really weird, I’m sorry I’m stalling. My best day was the day that I beat up Catherine… something-or-other, in the fourth grade.”

Connor lets out a laugh, and she grins. 

“I know, I know. I would, like,  _ never  _ do that in a million years, now. But… okay, so in my fourth grade class, there was this girl, Lily Ness. Well. She was really shy, but I always thought she seemed nice, and I wanted to get to know her. She liked to read the same books I did, the Percy Jackson ones. And I thought she looked like Annabeth Chase, so I really wanted to be her friend.

“One day, Catherine comes up to her at recess and takes up her book. I think it was Harry Potter this time, because, for some reason, it made me especially mad. And then she goes on about how weird it is to read during recess, and she calls Lily a freak and a nerd, which was a big deal for fourth graders. I remember she said something like ‘ _ Only fat people read,’  _ or  _ something.” _

“Jesus,” I say, and Zoe nods, messing with her hair.

“I know, right? And then she opens the book and starts ripping pages out. Lily’s crying because it’s a library book, and I look over and the stupid teacher is on her phone all the way across the playground.

“So I went up to Catherine, and I punched her in the face. I had no idea how to punch, I just curled up my fist and hit her. And then she tried to kick me, and I caught her foot and made her fall over. I hit her again and told her to apologize and give the book back. I felt like a fucking superhero.”

“God, I remember that,” Connor says wistfully, finally biting into his marshmallow. “I’ve never seen dad so mad at you. You got suspended for a week!”

“I didn’t even care. After that, Lily and I were best friends until she moved away in the sixth grade.” She’s smiling, nostalgic. “I remember, sitting in the principal’s office, when mom came to pick us up, she took you home, too.”

“We watched How to Train Your Dragon in that pillow fort, with the couch cushions.”

She’s laughing now. The story makes me smile, for some reason. It’s something I wouldn’t expect from Zoe, but she doesn’t seem any different, either. If anything, it just makes her seem even  _ more  _ Zoe.

“Jared?” She asks, and he cracks his knuckles.

“Alright. Best day. Summer after freshman year, I’m at summer camp for the entire month of June.”

Beside me, Connor groans. “How come I can tell where this is going?”

He makes an elaborate shushing motion and continues, testing the roasted marshmallow on his skewer with a poke. “Okay, so, it’s two weeks into camp. I haven’t actually like,  _ talked  _ to anyone so far. It’s starting to get really depressing.

“And then, out of nowhere, there’s Alexa—,”

“Let me guess. You got to second base? You had never experienced such a powerful—,”

“ _ Connor!”  _ Zoe says, and then glares at him. “Jared, go on.”

“ _ Alexa  _ was a lesbian,  _ Connor.  _ So.” He takes a bite of his marshmallow. “She was a badass. She was going to be in the army. And, she let me play Nintendo with her after camp. The day we met, we snuck out and stole toaster waffles from the kitchen, and talked about what we’re going to do after college. It was amazing.”

“That’s… surprisingly child friendly,” Alana says, astounded.

Jared makes a  _ hmph  _ noise and scratches the bridge of his nose, a little embarrassed.

“All right, Evan,” says Zoe, skewering a block of cheddar cheese. “Best day?”

Everyone’s staring at me, and my mind goes blank. I clear my throat and pick a marshmallow out of the bag, eating it plain. I rub a hand on my jeans, clear my throat again. The only thing I can think of is today, but that feels like cheating, and the science fair project day, and that feels weak.

“I think… I think my best day hasn’t happened yet.” Alana cocks her head, but I rush on before anyone can ask any questions. “I mean—what I mean by that is, sure, I’ve had a lot of, tons of good days,  _ great  _ days even, but… the best day of  _ my life?  _ It’s got to be  _ amazing,  _ you know? I think it’s coming, still.” I don’t say that sometimes, I’m afraid it’ll never happen at all.

“I think I understand that,” says Connor from next to me. 

“Come on, Ev, you gotta share  _ something,  _ though,” prods Jared, and I clear my throat  _ again.  _ It’s still sore from scream-singing earlier.

“I can tell you about…a dream I had?” It sounds stupid as soon as I say it, and I cringe at myself immediately, but Alana nods in encouragement, and Zoe puts her elbows on her knees, listening.

“Ok. I had this dream a lot after I broke my arm in August… You know how there’s that apple orchard down near the lake? I… I used to dream that—.” I stop, sigh. “It’s actually really stupid, I’m sorry.”

“No, go on,” says Alana, and I swallow. 

“Well… It was like... I was with this person. I don’t really know who it was, but it was, like a friend. And we drove down to the orchard… we got ice cream, talked in the car. They did this really bad parking job, just  _ horrible  _ really. They overcorrected way too much and took up, like, two and a half spaces. We went out into the fields behind the apple trees here, I wonder if it—it must’ve been May, or June, because the grass was all yellow and tall, like how it is in the beginning of summer…

“We just talked,” I shrug. “Laid down in the grass and talked and looked at the sky. I can just—I can kind of see it now. It was beautiful, this opaque, endless blue. Like it went on for forever. And then, at one point, they get up and start sprinting across this field, at top speed, and for a minute, I just stand there, but then they scream out to follow, and so I do. And at the end of this field, there’s a huge apple tree. Massive, like, a hundred feet tall. And we’re running toward it—I catch up to this person, and we’re sprinting together—I remember feeling the grass on my arms, the scratchiness of it.

“And we reach this tree, and—and we start climbing it, for no reason, really. It’s like, maybe they just wondered—maybe we just wondered—how the world might look—and it’s so high up. And really, maybe I dreamt this part because I broke my arm falling out of the tree, but at one point, we’re nearly at the top, and the sun’s breaking through the trees, and I can feel everything, and they give me their arm to pull me up—

“And suddenly, the branch gives way. I can feel it break beneath me. And I’m falling.” 

I stop for a minute, and, realizing that I’ve closed my eyes, open them. Zoe is enraptured, staring off into nothingness, as if she’s daydreaming. Alana has her eyes closed, like I did. Jared’s staring into the fire. Connor is looking at me. 

“Well… I hit the ground. I break my arm. Except, this time, well, this person comes back down, and they help me. Catch my breath, ease me upright. The dream ends there. It sounds kind of depressing—Sorry—I know it’s supposed to be a ‘best day’—I just—It’s happy to me. It has a happy ending.” I can still see the yellow field in my mind. Feel their hand. His hand. Because it’s Connor who was in the dream, wasn’t it? I’ve always known that.

“That’s beautiful, Evan,” says Zoe, who sounds quiet and dreamy. The fire crackles, sparks like fireflies, suspended in the center of all of us. 

“You know, I read once that dreaming about the color yellow represents energy and harmony,” offers Alana.

“It also means a need for change. I read some articles because I was interested.”

“It shouldn’t’ve been a dream,” Connor says, so much a whisper that I almost don’t hear him over the fire.

“...What?”

“Someone should’ve been there for you. You shouldn’t’ve had to lay under that tree with a broken arm for as long as you did.”

Subconsciously, I bite at my cheek. “Well, to be—to be fair, nobody knew where I was. I was just—I was taking a walk.”

He crosses his ankles in front of him, looks at me because he knows, and in that moment I’m so,  _ so  _ grateful that he doesn’t call out the lie in front of everyone. “You know what I mean.”

I  _ do _ know what he means. I wish I didn’t. I wish that for once, everything could just be  _ okay.  _

“Well, it’s my turn, huh? The best day of my life..” He picks at his nail polish, thinking. “Probably… uh, I think it was when… the first time that I finished learning a song on piano. 

“I was really young, and it was kind of simple. I’d asked the music teacher if, instead of learning Mozart, or something, I could learn a song that I liked. And she let me. So when I finally sat down and played it, and Cynthia and Larry—sorry, Zoe—mom and dad heard it, and they were proud, it made me feel like I’d done something really, really, right. I’ve never gotten that back.”

It’s quiet, and so he continues.

“I don’t really want to talk about my worst day, if that’s okay.”

Zoe looks at him—I see them lock eyes. And she nods a little bit. I can’t help but feel the tiny twinge of worry eating away at my core.  _ Why doesn’t he want to talk about it? What did he do?  _

I have seen the scars. Of course. I noticed them pretty early on, actually, but I never brought it up until finally it  _ came up _ (the day I told him about what really happened with the tree). But he’d told me nothing beyond that. Self-harm. And I looked at him and felt so intensely sad—

He never told me anything beyond that. I really, desperately,  _ painfully  _ hope there’s nothing beyond that.

“I can say mine? It’s easy,” says Alana. “My cat died when I was in the sixth grade. It’s not as intense, I guess, but I’ve never lost a family member or anything, so.”

Zoe takes in a long, long breath. “Last May was when I had my worst day.” Next to me, Connor flinches, but I don’t think anyone else but me notices in the darkness. 

“I got home after school and no one else was home, and it was weird because, usually, at least  _ someone  _ was there. So I did my homework, and I waited. Nobody would answer their phone. And it got later. So I worried for the worst. I ate an apple with peanut butter, and I watched TV, but I worried.

“When I went into the bathroom, the cabinet was open. I couldn’t tell if I was remembering wrong, but things looked different in there. And I went upstairs, and I played guitar, and when I was done, I wished I would hear something, anything, because it was so quiet. Nobody came home until late. I was sitting up, crying. And then, they asked,  _ where,  _ and I said,  _ I don’t know. _

“Because sometimes, the worst comes true. Sometimes, the world gives you no choice but to know that some things are beyond helping. That you missed your chance.” She shakes her head, sniffing a little. “I never want to do that again. I never want to miss my chance.”

Alana leans over and awkwardly pats Zoe’s shoulder. It’s enough to make her laugh, and she just waves it off. “Sorry, I’m fine. Jared?”

“Man, mine kind of sucks. When I was a kid, I got lost at the airport. It was pretty scary. I don’t know, I can’t remember it all the way. But at one point I tripped and fell and cried on the ground for a while. I thought I’d have to live there.” He laughs, and pushes his glasses up.

“My mom used to travel a lot for work? She’s settled down, now, but remember, Ev?” He looks at me. “I’d sleep over at your house a ton. I don’t know. Anyways, once, she let me come with her on the plane, and I guess I just wandered off. It’s super faint.” Jared looks down and picks at his nails, setting down the skewer. “I was scared of crowds for, like,  _ forever  _ after that. Starting middle school was a nightmare. But, I mean, I got used to it.”

“Really?” I ask, and he looks again in my direction. He seemed so… I don’t know,  _ fine  _ in middle school. Like nothing bothered him. He wasn’t bullied, not that I know of, nothing more than teasing. He had it so  _ easy.  _ Or so I thought, I guess.

“Yeah,” he nods self consciously, and clears his throat. “But it wasn’t—it wasn’t that big of a deal. Y’know. Isn’t it your turn?”

Everyone looks at me expectantly, and I look down. “My worst day was the day that I broke my arm.”

Nobody asks. Part of me feels like they know why it was so bad. Because, in the dream, someone came to get me. 

“Okay, okay,” Zoe says thickly. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I personally think Evan wins, though, with that dream.”

“What?” Cries Jared in an outroar. “That’s not even a real memory!”

She shrugs. “All in favor?”

And Alana raises her hand, and so does Connor. And then he puts it down, right on top of mine.

The bottle of wine remains unopened and untouched next to him.

“It’s settled then,” she says, trying to smile. She wipes at her face. “Okay, so, I’m sorry because I didn’t mean for it to get this heavy—Just, I’m going to play my guitar, okay?”

“Yes, please,” Alana says, putting down her skewer.

“Wait a minute,” Jared interjects, digging around in his backpack. He furiously searches for a few minutes before pulling out a strange-looking white stick, which he then chucks into the flames.

“What the fuck was that?” Connor leans forward.

“Jared, I swear, if it’s some kind of—”

But then something truly wonderful happens. The flames start turning colors. Literally, when before, they were orange and yellow, they’re now a dancing display of green, purple, blue. Zoe, who had leaned over to unzip her guitar case, sits up and her eyes go wide. 

“Oh, my god. That’s beautiful.”

“They’re called fire crystals. We had some left over from New Year’s last year.”

Alana’s grinning. “Chemical salts! That’s amazing!”

“I’m going to pretend I understand what that means,” says Connor. His hand is still on mine. I feel like usually, I’d be freaked out by it, but something about the campfire feels different, now that everyone’s gone and told their stories, and the air is open and warm and the fire is so vivid. He leans back a little and sneaks a glance at me. I look at him, and he has a strange expression on his face. A question, like earlier in the car. And so I shrug at him, the tiniest movement. 

Zoe clamps something down on the neck of her guitar and starts strumming. “Okay. Do you guys care if I sing?”

I shake my head, and Alana says, “No,” and Jared looks very pleased with himself about the fire and doesn’t seem to hear.

She starts fingerpicking. It’s a warm and gentle melody, changing and shifting. I listen to the words and try to  _ be  _ in the moment, like how it was in the car this morning. I try to focus on the way that the light plays across Zoe’s face—she really is beautiful, beautiful in the way that it feels when you’re finally able to recognize a constellation, when you know that it’s constant, and there—and try to memorize the planes of the guitar, the way Jared leans in the lawn chair, Alana, with her blanket bundled around her shoulders. The feeling of each of Connor’s fingers, on top of mine. Kind of cold, really, from the November air. I flip my hand palm-up and interlace our fingers, as if trying to warm it up. 

  
  


_ “In the morning, when I wake, _

_ when the sun is coming through, _

_oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness,_

_ and you fill my head with you. _

_ Shall I write it in a letter? _

_ Shall I try to get it down? _

_ Oh, you fill my head with pieces _

_ of a song I can’t get out. _

_ Can I be close to you? _

_ Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh. _

_ Can I be close to you..?” _

A breeze rushes through the nighttime clearing, rustling the trees above us, making the fire crackle and spark. It feels like magic, kind of. Zoe’s hair, which she had taken down from her ponytail after our hike earlier, blows behind her. The music shifts, and soars, and becomes. It takes my heart with it. 

I think that maybe Connor and I are holding hands because of the dream. How no one was there to get me. And maybe he wants to be there to get me, maybe he wants to be there when no one else is. Maybe he’ll be the one to come running if I ever fall again. And I keep thinking about that, and I try not to smile too much, and I try not to cry, but then it all kind of happens at once and it’s very quiet and I close my eyes and feel hotness running down my face, because it’s so beautiful and everything has kind of worked out and  _ what was I thinking? How could I have ever…? _

_ “Can we take it to a morning _

_ where the fields are painted gold _

_ and the trees are filled with memories _

_ of the feelings never told?” _

I think about the yellow field in the forest. The way that the grass brushed against my arms. The air, summer-warm, on that day when I had decided to take a walk to escape, and had decided to climb the tree to escape, and had fallen and hadn’t died, and had wondered what any of it meant. Why the ground had come up to meet me in a way that kept me from closing my eyes. 

Maybe I know why now. Maybe the universe knew that this was coming. I’ve never really believed in fate as much. But. 

Connor squeezes my hand, and I look at him, and he looks at me and smiles. His face is one million colors in the firelight. I don’t know what any of it _ means, _ but some part of me feels like I don’t have to. Like it’s okay to just be. In a surge of will, I squeeze back a little.

I don’t know what any of it means, and I kind of feel like the not-knowing centers me. And that’s okay. It’s allowed to be okay.

  
“ _ Can I be close to you?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jared: hey so i saw you and evan holding hands at the campfire earlier lol no homo fasdfghgfdsasdfg  
> Connor: yes homo  
> Jared: wha  
> Connor: I said yes I am a homosapien Jared jesus what do u think i am a demon  
> Jared: well
> 
> I'm tired ;—;


	22. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A midnight swim happens. A revelation occurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely a trigger warning here for mentions of self harm, scars, a past suicide attempt. It goes into semi-detail. Nothing graphic in the sense of violence, though. Please read safely!
> 
> And can I just mention that every comment, kudos, bookmark, etc. like, makes my day? I still can't believe the fic's breached 1000 hits. Holy shit. Thank you. I'm so glad that we get to go on this journey together!

"Careful. The path’s kind of messy.” 

Zoe’s voice cuts through the blackness from somewhere ahead of me just as I trip over a protruding root, causing me to simultaneously jerk Evan closer to me and yank Jared’s wrist backwards until we’ve all nearly tumbled into a discombobulated mess. Jared, with lightning reflexes, surprisingly enough (probably all the video gaming) must let go of Zoe’s hand and balance himself on a tree, aiming the blinding glow of his phone flashlight at me and Evan, squinting and shielding our eyes at what feels like the noonday sun on the plains of the Savannah. I can almost hear ‘Circle of Life’ playing.

“God, point that away,” I choke out, and Jared, realizing his mistake, moves the light away from us and points it on Zoe, who’s looking behind her, confused.

“You guys good?”

“Tripped,” I say, and she lets out a laugh.

Her, Jared, Evan, and I are stumbling in complete darkness across a messy trail toward the lake. Jared’s phone flashlight isn’t really helping much; to make up for it, we’ve formed a kind of human chain: Evan at the end, his hand in mine, and mine in Jared’s, and his in Zoe’s, who’s leading the way. 

“Are you sure that it’s not deep?” Evan asks for the thousandth time, worry in his voice as we reassume our chain and continue along.

“It’s not actually that deep, Ev,” Zoe says, pushing a branch out of the way, only for it to smack into Jared’s face. “Sorry! Uh—,” she searches for her train of thought, and settles on, “It’s only really deep in the center. Everywhere else is standing depth.”

Back at the campsite, after the colors in the fire faded back into gold and we had gone through every campfire song that most of us know (Including but not limited to the _Campfire Song Song_ from _Spongebob_ , _Wonderwall_ , and _Bless the Broken Road_ by Rascal Flatts, which only Zoe and I knew anyway—Larry’s country roots run deep, but we’ve only managed to get infected by a few songs)—Zoe declared that she’d ‘waited long enough’ and that ‘if I’m not in the lake in twenty minutes, I will do something drastic’.

We’d scrambled around in the dim light of the campfire for towels, and even then it took us almost half an hour to all get changed into bathing suits, due to various measures of dilly-dallying such as Zoe: “Do you think we need flashlights?” and Jared: “I’m sure it’s fine.” Needless to say: we needed flashlights. Alana had watched our preparations from the fire with a questioning brow.

“Alana, you’re coming right?”

“Do I want hypothermia?”

Jared straightened his glasses and pulled a stuffed up towel from his backpack. “Yes?”

“No. I’ll wait here. I can get some reading done.”

Zoe had just shrugged and pulled her hair back up.

When we finally break through the trees, I can hear Evan and Jared both audibly gasp. For the whole day, we’ve been under the cover of leaves. Even at the campsite, the sky is blocked out by the branching limbs of the pines. But here…

The sky stretches out in an endless veil of silvery grey, because the night’s not opaque here. It’s seethrough, silver… Above us, the milky way stretches, purple and pink and translucent in the night darkness. The stars—well. They’re forever, for lack of a better or more witty metaphor.

They’re forever.

We break our human chain and Zoe rushes down to the shore of the lake, eagerly taking off her tennis shoes. Everyone else kind of hurries up to join her, staring out at the mirror-like surface of the water, the moon reflected there. Zoe shrugs off her flannel and sets it on top of her shoes, and when she’s in her swimsuit, arms and legs pricking with chills, she sticks her foot into the water.

She yelps a little, laughing. “It’s  _ really  _ cold.”

“Well, once we’re in, we’ll get used to it, right?” Jared says, tearing at the laces on his shoes. Evan stands and stares at the water, arms wrapped around himself. I pull off my t-shirt and socks, and try not to wince at the cold air.

“I hope so,” she says, her teeth clenched. “Well. There’s only one way to do this.” There’s this old pier on the left edge of the shore; Zoe and I have picnicked there before. A few years ago, someone broke one of the wooden sides of it, and since then, unfixed, it’d become the perfect spot for jumping into the lake. She walks toward it now, making one wet and one dry footprint on the sand, and, steeling herself, promptly leaps into open air before hitting the water with a medium-sized splash.

When she surfaces, she’s gasping and screeching at the shock of the cold water, her hair in her face as if tying it back never mattered, laughing and making ripples in the reflection of the sky.

“Well?!” She calls out after the three of us stand staring for a minute. “If you made me jump in here by my fucking  _ self—,” _

I’m suddenly sprinting across the shore, my bare feet pounding the wood of the small deck, and then I’m in midair, Zoe’s grinning face beneath me, and I’m overcome by darkness and cold. It permeates everywhere; in between my fingers, in my ears, on my scalp. I thrash to the surface and gasp.

“ _ Shit! Oh, fuck!” _

She takes a ragged breath in between laughter and splashes me with icy water, and… let me take a moment to reiterate to you how cold this water is: It’s the kind of cold you feel when you have to wake up at four in the morning and your fan has been on all night, a chest-shaking kind of cold. It’s like when you’re really sick, and you’re technically burning hot, but no amount of blankets can keep you from shivering. But, on top of all of that, it’s so cold that it’s like floating. You become so numb that it’s like you become  _ nothing at all. _

Seeing the reflection of stars all around you trippy as  _ fuck. _

My feet brush the sand at the bottom of the lake, and I allow myself to settle down into a standing position and sink so that only my head is above the surface. 

“Ah! Oh my god—Connor!” wheezes a voice, and I turn; Evan and Jared are sitting on the edge of the pier—Jared’s face looks weird without his glasses on, bare. He’s pointing at me, bent over in laughter. Even Evan’s grinning a little.

“What?”

Jared motions to my head and I lift a hand and realize that my hair has come completely out of its bun, and is falling in flat, drenched strands all around my face.

“ _ You look like Cousin Itt,”  _ he chokes, wiping his eyes, and I give Zoe a look. It’s nice to have sibling telepathy when you need it most—she nods at me and swims over to the pier. And then we both grab one of Jared’s legs, and before he has time to protest, we’ve pulled him into the lake.

He sputters as he surfaces and coughs, eyes wide. “ _ Oh, holy shit!” _

“What? Chilly?” I ask, and he feebly tries to splash me.

“Come in, Evan!” calls Zoe, swimming out in the lake of stars and floating on her back.

Jared disappears underwater after spitting more curses, and then Evan and I are left at the pier. 

“Are you coming?” I ask carefully, thinking about what happened earlier at the fire. He seemed a little… off. Sad. Like the 3-D glasses were off more than ever, and he was blurred lines of red and blue. Like talking about his dream threw him off balance. He still has his t-shirt on, a light, cotton one with  _ Shoshone National Forest  _ printed on it. 

He bites down on his cheek and shrugs. “I don’t know. I can’t swim, and it’s dark…”

I look out at the lake behind me. Jared’s chasing Zoe with a shark fin made out of his palm. The sky isn’t completely black, it’s a dark grey-green-kind-of-purple color, and there aren’t any lights, but, other than the shadows of the trees, the lake is fairly visible.

“You really don’t want to?” I ask, and he nods slowly. 

“I’m sorr—,”

“Don’t worry about it.”

From across the lake, Zoe shrieks as Jared tries to drag her under, laughing. “ _ Fucking quit it—!” _

“About earlier,” I say without meaning to, and immediately cringe. “I’m sorry if it was… weird. I shouldn’t’ve—,”

“No.” He looks a little surprised at his own voice. “It was fine, Connor. It was okay.”

“...okay?”

He nods, smiling. His freckles are unexpectedly visible in the moonlight.  _ Like stardust,  _ I think but don’t say.  _ Fuck.  _ Count on Evan Hansen to make my life into a fucking teenage rom-com. Who knew one Connor Murphy could be rom-com material? Cigarettes and suicidal rage don’t really fit the ticket.

Or. Wait.

Fuck.

“Yes. It really was okay. It was… it was more than okay.” He looks away, cheek-biting, and then looks back at me. For a moment, the sound of my sister splashing fades into the background. I take a nervous breath and try to put my hair behind my ears. And then he shrugs, smiling.

“Are you sure you don’t want to at least try coming in?” I finally ask. “It’s not that cold anymore. You get used to it.” I say this, though, in truth, ‘getting used to it’ is more accurately described as ‘I’m too numb to tell anymore’.

He takes a breath and swings his feet. 

“Come on, Ev!” Shouts Jared from across the lake, and Evan and I both turn. 

“...I guess,” he says quietly, and I smile at him without even thinking about it. He stands up and unties his shoes on the pier and takes his shirt off and then he’s standing timidly in front of me and he has freckles all over his chest and back and feet and he’s crossing his arms. “It really is dark.”

“You know,” I start, “It isn’t, when we’re thinking about it. All the stars? Those are whole suns, whole galaxies. And even the moon is reflecting the sun. The whole universe is shining for us right now.” The thought occurs to me that that is very very stupid and Zoe’s star obsession has probably rubbed off on me just a little, and I laugh, nervous. “Holy shit, that was disgusting. Sorry.” But he’s just looking at me, eyes open, a faint smile on his face. I realize that his eyes aren’t grey at all. They’re the lightest and most sky-like eyes I have ever seen—not even the  _ color  _ of them. They seem incandescent. Like the clouds have parted and the light is pouring through. 

He sits back down on the pier. “I’m  _ not  _ jumping in.”

I backpedal to make room and pull my hair behind me (failing spectacularly. At this point, it’s tangled beyond help). “Go ahead.”

Carefully, Evan scoots forward and falls into the water. From behind us, Zoe and Jared shout out in encouragement. His head doesn’t even go under; his eyes go wider and his mouth falls open and he tenses up in the cold.

“Oh—Oh, my god,  _ wow.” _

“ _ Evan! Evan!”  _ Zoe cheers as she slaps the water with her fists, splashing Jared.

I roll my neck and swim out to meet them, shucking water at Zoe and Jared with the entirety of my forearm. She gasps at me and coughs. 

“After all we’ve been through?”

“Right, right, okay.”

“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

I shrug, grinning and feeling like I don’t have very many words left inside of me. Maybe Evan’s stolen them all. Stupid.

Evan wades out to meet us, and after a long time of splashing and screaming and story-telling Zoe falls back onto the water and lets herself float again. 

“Can any of you guys float?” She asks, and Jared immediately flops backward.

“I can’t,” says Evan, scratching the back of his neck.

I step toward him, sand squishing under my feet. “Here, I’ll help you. Lay back.” He gives me a look, but then I gently put my hand on the flat of his back and he understands what I mean. He awkwardly bends backwards, trying to keep his balance.

“Let your feet leave the floor, Ev.” 

I feel his weight relax onto my hand as he obeys, and he lets the water come over the back of his head. Taking my hand away gently, I leave him floating before I lean back myself. The freezing water closes over my ears and I shut my eyes, and I just allow myself to exist.

And then—I do it. I do the thing; that thing where you think about how empty your mind is, and how peaceful it is, and you wonder why you’re not thinking so much. You wonder where all the voices went—not actual voices.

I think you know what I mean, because I specifically remember Simon the Therapist telling me that we all have that negative commentary going on. Sometimes, though, some people don’t let it be _ just  _ commentary. It becomes their narration.

And… laying in a pool of starlight, with all of my senses shut off, I can realize that it’s better, at least just a little bit. I can observe it from outside of it, instead of from in the middle. See the fire raging inside of myself without desperately trying to douse it with water while in the thick of it. And thinking about the razor in the bathroom cabinet, I feel kind of sick. Because, imagine if Evan did that? Or Zoe? For a long time I was afraid that she would—there was no reason why. She was nowhere as deep down the rabbit hole as me, not that that matters.

But. 

I can think about it, sparingly, because I don’t want to get dragged into it. But I can think about it:

It was hospital beds. It was Zoe at one in the morning, and mom and dad. The fluorescents. And my arms were all bandaged, and there was an IV. And I just remember thinking,  _ so, here it is. This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? Deep down? For them to know. But not like this. _

At the campfire, I’d said I ‘didn’t want to say’ for that very reason. Like I’d finally dragged myself halfway through hell, and if I turned around to acknowledge it, all of the progress would sweep away. Like Orpheus and Eurydice? 

Because there’s something so dark in thinking about what were almost my final moments. What was almost my final breath. Something that makes me draw air into my lungs as if it’s the most precious thing in the world. Because when I was there, so close but so far from it, I felt it all.

So much regret. All of the million things I’d never considered. The world with me in it. Things I’d never even thought about. Like the sway of the trees. The way the sky looks in the afterglow of the sun. Zoe, but really,  _ Zoe.  _ My lovely, independent, brash, creative sister, who plays guitar and draws on her jeans. The light half of the coin. The piano. The way that music sounds. The way the keys feel on my fingers. 

I guess I couldn’t let that go. I guess I couldn’t give that up.

And, I won’t lie, there are times when I wonder why I hadn’t just  _ let go  _ (fewer and fewer, though), those endless moments when you're hiding in your closet with the lights off and your sister crying next door. But sometimes you just need to smoke out a window. Or paint your walls. Or find a friend, and hold their hand. 

I pretend that, instead of floating and looking up, I’m being cradled in the water by gravity, looking down at the milky way, and I wonder about how life is so complicated and long and strange and beautiful, and I decide that maybe it’s okay to think about that. It’s alright to not be okay. Because I am trying to get better. I am. It’s endlessly difficult. 

I think maybe I’ll talk to Cynthia about talking to a therapist again. Maybe. 

But once that train of thought passes, and I am left truly in suspension, it’s a wonderful thing. I never want it to end. I want to hold it in my chest and breathe with it there, a living thing.

I’m so painfully glad that I am here. 

We all lay floating in the lake for a long time. At one point, someone’s head bumps into my arm. And then, when I’m ready, I take in a deep breath and push myself underwater, so that I can surface upright. When my ears finally are clear of water, the wind is blowing in the trees. And the night seems lighter than before. Zoe’s next to me, her hair out like a fan, eyes open, and when she sees me stand, she rises, hair dripping.

I sink down in the cold water, shivering a little, and point to the sky. “Tell me what that one is?”

She looks at me for a minute, confused. She has three little freckles under her right eye that get all scrunched up whenever she pulls a face like that. And then she wades over to me and pulls me into a hug. It’s cold, wet, and kind of awkward, but when she’s done it makes me wish that we hugged each other more often. We never really do.

“I wanted to say sorry for earlier at the campfire,” she says on a sigh. “I shouldn’t’ve talked about what happened last summer.”

“Zoe?” She looks up. She’s the tiniest bit shorter than me. I tease her relentlessly about it. “It’s okay. _ I’m _ sorry. About what happened last summer. And you don’t— you don’t have to worry about it ever happening again.  _ Please.  _ Don’t worry about it.”

She very gently lifts my arm and turns my forearm toward her. She takes a deep, shaking breath and runs a finger along the scars, white and ragged; I always thought that it kind of looked like someone had tried to play tic-tac-toe, the way that it’s crosshatched. I think she needs to see that there aren’t any new ones. That there isn’t blood coming from my skin, that my face isn’t white.

And then she puts it back down.

“I love you, Connor. I really do.”

“I love you, too.”

She puts her wet hair behind her ears and sinks back down into the water, smiling sadly at me. “Cassiopeia.”

“What?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “The constellation, dummy. It’s called Cassiopeia. The one that looks like a crown.”

And for what feels like the first time… the connection truly starts to mend itself. I see her. She sees me. We acknowledge all of the million ways we’ve fucked up.

And then we carry on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again. Thank you for everything.
> 
> Quarantine's h a r d, man. (hard? bad? kinky!)  
> Hang in there.  
> Seriously, I believe in you! So! Much!
> 
> Also holy plum sauce Hamilton on Disney+ ?? is? so amazing? I cried like five times you guys, I would watch it if it's available to you/if you haven't already/if you have and just wanna see it again, I won't judge I've watched it .. thrice now?  
> Have a seriously awesome day/night wherever you are/whenever you read this.
> 
> ALSO! I'm thinking of changing the schedule so that I only update once a week. I know, I know! But I want to really focus on the quality of these upcoming chapters? They're important ;)


	23. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So close, but oh, so very far.

“God, what time is it?” Zoe and I look to the right of us to see Jared standing upright in the water, arms wrapped around himself. “ _ Fuck,  _ it’s cold.”

“Late.”

I look down at my hands to see that they’ve done that thing where they get all pruned up, and then notice that my fucking nailbeds are kind of blue. Yeah. Maybe swimming in November wasn’t the most ace idea.

Evan’s kind of just laying there with his eyes closed blissfully, and Jared prods him with a foot. Startled, he flinches and sucks in a breath right as water splashes onto his face. He curls up, coughing, glaring at him.

“Really?” He sputters in between wheezes, and Jared runs a hand through his hair, nonplussed.

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m freezing, can we go back?” Zoe asks, crossing her arms. A stiff breeze blows across the lake, and we all shudder collectively.. 

“Yeah, please,” Jared nods, wiping at his face.

In agreement, we all start wading back toward the shore, hands shoved under our arms to keep them warm, heads bent in the wind. Zoe climbs up onto the sand and grabs for her towel, cocooning herself in it like a burrito and groaning.

“Maybe this was a dumb idea. Ugh, god it’s  _ cold.  _ It got colder!”

“No, this was fun,” I say, puffing out my cheeks in a breath. “The showers have hot water, right?”

“Yeah.”

Jared reaches around for his glasses and puts them onto his face, squinting. “There’s no way. I’m not taking a shower until tomorrow. I’m exhausted. Evan, are you coming?”

We all turn back to the lake, to see that Evan’s stopped dead, about ten feet from the shore. He has an odd expression on his face, staring, unfocused, his mouth parted slightly.

Zoe’s voice is concerned. “You okay?”

He swallows, looking pale in the moonlight. “I—I think I stepped on... something.”  
“What?” 

He grits his teeth and I can see the realization dawning on him as a new layer of panic sets in. “There’s something—there’s something stuck—I think there’s—,”

“Oh, shit,” Says Jared. “Wait, what?”

Evan’s still frozen. “Oh, my god—,”

Zoe gives me an anxious look and steps forward. “Evan, how big is it?”

He’s taking ragged breaths. I recognize the spiral—I don’t have anxiety attacks as much as I used to, but I remember how they started. The feeling that your heart is pounding out of your chest. That the air is too thin. I quickly start wading out to him.

“Jared!” Zoe calls, “Get Evan’s stuff!”

He’s still kind of staring out, but when I come closer, he looks at me instead. “Okay,” I say, trying to sound calm. He still looks pale. His shoulders are near his ears. “Take a deep breath. Everything's okay. What do you think it is, glass?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to take shuddering breaths. The freezing water probably isn’t helping. “I don’t—know—it’s—I can feel it—,”

From the shore, Jared and Zoe are calling to each other, and I look back at them hurrying across the sand before I refocus on Evan, who is considerably paler than two seconds ago. I almost feel like  _ I’m  _ starting to panic. I have no idea how to calm him down, how to administer first aid. So I pretend like I do. “I’m going to help you to the shore, okay? Don’t put your foot down. Here, give me your arm.” 

Evan takes a shallow breath and wraps his arm around my shoulder. I slowly start leading him toward the sand, and when we leave the water, help him to sit down, lowering him onto the tiny beach without putting his foot on the ground. 

I don’t tell him this—trying not to upset him anymore, at least—but I can see drops of blood on the sand behind us. I swallow hard and look away. Jared comes from the pier with his shoes and shirt, and Zoe tracks closer, worried. She hands me a towel, and I place it around his shoulders.

“Holy shit!” Jared gasps, coming into view. “Oh, shit!”

“What?! What is it?!”

“Nothing, Evan, it’s okay—Jared, calm down,” Zoe says, coming around to look at his foot. I can see the surprise on her face when she sees it, and I leave his side to look. I stifle any reaction, not wanting him to see me freaked out and freak out even more, but… There’s a huge chunk of glass stuck into the arch of his foot, ragged, probably dirty, and green, like from a broken beer bottle. There’s blood running all down his foot and onto the sand, and I hear him gasping with pain.

“Oh, god, what is it—”

Zoe makes a barely audible squeaking sound before saying, “You’ve, uh... got a pretty big piece of glass in your foot, Evan,” She’s trying to sound calm but not succeeding. Her voice keeps getting higher and higher. “It looks like a beer bottle…” Jared has turned around, a hand on his mouth, obviously spooked, but she swivels to me. “Since when do people drink here!?”

“Since always, probably!”

“There’s never been glass in the sand!” She’s whisper-shouting, as if Evan can’t hear her.

“What?!” I hiss back, “It isn’t my fault that people don’t toss their shit!”

“What do we do,” Jared moans quietly. He takes the bundle of Evan’s shirt and shoes and socks and sets it down on the sand.

Evan’s breathing picks up, and I crawl back over to him. “Okay, Evan, I want you to try and focus on my voice. It looks like it hurts, but try to just focus on me, okay? Everything is going to be alright.”

“This is so—I shouldn’t’ve—,”

“Evan—,”

“This always happens—,” he swallows. “Why did I think…? Why did I think this’d be different…?”

“Evan, look at me.”

He turns his head, his eyes shiny. His face is pale, his chest rising and falling quickly. “What if—It’s going to get infected—,”

“It’s not. Everything’s going to be okay.” At least I think it is. I’ve always been just an okay liar. I hope he doesn’t realize that I’m just as freaked out as he is. “Do you trust me?”

He hesitates, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing. “I do—but you can’t—like,  _ keep  _ it from getting infected—I mean, if the bottle’s dirty...,”

“Should I go get Alana?” Jared says, panicked sounding. “Or should we try to walk back to camp?”

“I’ll go,” offers Zoe, “You don’t know these woods very well, you might get lost in the dark.”

“Do we try to get the glass out?” 

“N-No. Please don’t.”  
“Don’t touch it until Alana gets here,” I assure, looking at the two of them. Zoe pulls her sandals on and rushes off into the trees.

Evan’s biting down hard on the inside of his mouth—I can tell, in the way that his jaw is clenched, his cheek sucked in a little. “Hey, stop that,” I say, trying to sound gentle, really trying, especially because it’s not exactly my default setting. “Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“It’s—,” he says, his jaw clenching tighter.

“Evan, I need you to look at me. You’re freaking out right now. Look at me—there. Look. We’re on a beach. Jared’s here. Zoe’s getting Alana, and she has a first aid kit, remember? It’s not going to get infected.”

“It hurts,” he chokes out, taking a sharp breath through his nose. “I think it was—I think it was sticking straight up—,”

“Yeah, it’s going to hurt. Stop biting on your cheek, or you’ll hurt yourself even more.”

He relaxes his jaw a little and closes his eyes.

“I’m going to go grab my shoes,” Jared says quickly, and walks across the sandspit to where they are, next to Zoe’s t-shirt. 

“You’re so  _ good,”  _ Evan sniffs, wiping at his eyes. He gets sand all over his cheek.

“What?”

“You’re such a good person. You’re such a good friend.” He’s crying now. “I cut my foot, and you’re here—,”

“It’s not that big of a deal, Evan—,”

“It is a big deal! I didn’t have any friends a few months ago. And now I do. And you— want to go camping with me and actually do things. Even though I’m—I’m—,”

“You’re not anything, Evan,” I say, and then mentally kick myself. “Not like that. You’re not anything bad. You’re… amazing.”

“Like no one would ever care because It’s too hard to—put the energy in. I get it. I’m not stupid, I’ve been around people like that—I know what it’s like to be draining...”

“Evan, you’re not.  _ Really _ .”

“Like everyone will eventually leave...because i’m too much. But at the same time—I can’t  _ connect  _ to people—,”

“You’re not too much.”

“Like it’s the story of my life. To be alone,” he says, and he sounds angry all of a sudden, but it’s that quiet anger, that hollow, empty feeling. “—and It’ll always be that way—but here you are, and there’s Zoe and Jared—and—,”

“Evan.”

He stops, swiping at his eyes again. 

“You can’t really think that. Think that you’re impossible to love.” There’s an acute pain just below my ribs. In my chest, when I breathe. Which is weird, because I’ve thought the same thing about myself, and it didn’t seem like such a big deal. But Evan’s  _ Evan.  _ And I’m me. There should be a difference, right?

His face scrunches up and he looks around, trying to take a breath. His face is wet and kind of red, now that he’s crying. “Well—I mean, I—,”

“Please don’t think that.”

Jared walks back over, his shirt on, wet and sticking to his skin, and he’s got his shoes dangling from a hand. He sits cross-legged on the other side of Evan. “Hey, Ev,” he says, sounding considerably less panicked than before, and also softer than usual. Like he’s talking to a scared animal. Which… I’ve never heard from him before, so I have to suppress my  _ what the fuck  _ expression before it takes over my face. “This sucks dude. Does it hurt?”

He nods, exhaling. “Where’s Alana?”

“I don’t know, Zoe went to get her.” I say, detached but refocusing. I lean back to where my t-shirt is laying in the sand and shake it out. When I put it on, it’s still gritty. A cold wind blows through the lake, sending ripples through the reflection of stars, and Evan leans over, shivering. Jared takes Evan’s shirt from the bundle he placed down earlier and offers it to him. He takes it gladly and shrugs it on over his head, still shivering; I realize that the towel that Zoe gave me to wrap around him is wet, and I take it off and grab mine from where the shirt was. It’s not wet, and the wind has blown me dry already, so I don’t need it anymore. I gingerly place it around his shoulders.

Evan blows out a breath and squints, and he brushes a hand against his bottom lip, wincing.

“Is your mouth okay?” I ask, and he looks at me, confused for a moment before realizing.

“Oh—oh, yeah, it is. Just—like, when I get stressed out, my lip goes kind of numb. I don’t know why, it’s just always done that. I’m fine.”

“Oh,” I say, not sure how to respond. “Okay. I’m sure, uh, Alana’s close.”

Jared suddenly looks down and pulls a ziplock bag out of the pocket of his swim trunks. From out of it, he takes his phone and reads something, the screen lighting up his glasses. “It’s Zoe. She says that she and Alana are coming, but that Alana needs to get her stuff… She says that we need to take the glass out and put pressure on the cut.”

Evan instantly tenses up. “Oh, god,  _ nooo. Why?” _

“Hey, don’t freak out...”

“What does she expect us to use to put pressure on it?” Jared asks out loud, typing, and then, a few seconds later, reads, “ _ my hand if necessary?!” _

“ _ No _ , oh, no _ , please no.” _

“Can’t we use one of the towels?”

“She says there might be sand in it.”

Evan’s breathing hard again, and I automatically feel myself moving closer to put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, can’t we use a t-shirt or something, then?”

“Do you want to give up yours?”

“No, why don’t we use yours?”

“Because it’s the only one I brought!”

“That’s disgusting—,”

Jared leans over and hisses in a breath at the sight of his foot. “Uh, Connor—It’s still bleeding.”

“Well, it isn’t just going to  _ stop, is it?” _

“Oh, fuck, I’m doing this aren’t I?” Jared lets out a breath and wipes a wrist across his forehead. “Alright, Evan? I’m going to take the glass out, okay? It’s going to hurt, okay, I’m just—,”

“Stop rambling and just do it!” I bark.

“Jared, don’t! Jared, I swear to god, get away from me, I’m serious right now, please don’t—,”

“Do it Jared!”

His face crumples up as he cringes. “Oh,  _ fuck, oh shit!” _

“ _ Augh, stop!”  _

“What are you doing?!”

Jared leans away, pale. There’s blood on his hands. “I tried to take it out, but as soon as it shifted, he started screaming!”

“You have to do it in one motion, don’t jiggle it around—”

“I’m not!”

Evan tries to take a breath and fails, and then squeezes his fists and grits his teeth. “Please, stop—stop yelling.”

I look back to him, biting my lip. “Sorry, Ev—Jared, can you do it, or do I have to? Be serious right now—,”

Evan lets out a quiet sound and his shoulders seize up, and I look to see Jared holding the shard of glass between a thumb and forefinger. The bottom of it is black with blood. “Okay. Good.” He pants, grimacing. “I got it.” Evan’s silent, his eyes shut, taking small, quiet breaths.

“You know what? Here,” I say, and pull my shirt back off again. It’s one of my favorites— the Joy Division one—but that’s not important right now—there’s only a little sand caught in it, and that's on the inside. It’s clean fabric. I toss it to Jared, who catches it, having put the glass down next to him.

“Are you sure?” He asks, pausing, and I nod. He balls it up and presses it onto Evan’s foot; He makes a stifled whimper sound and covers his face with his hands.

It’s quiet for a minute; we can hear the rustling of the pine needles, the water lapping at the shore. Evan’s breathing slows and begins to even out, and I keep my hand on his shoulder, just in case he needs an anchor. Jared presses the shirt to his foot and looks at Evan with a pensive expression.

When Alana and Zoe break through the trees, he sags with relief. 

“Hi, Evan,” Alana says kindly, kneeling down next to Jared, who lets out an infinitely long exhale. “Okay. Thanks for putting pressure on it. I’m going to elevate your foot” She gently lifts his leg onto her lap, where she’s kneeling. She peels back the t-shirt and doesn’t even wince at the bloody cut. She rolls her shoulders and nods. “This is good. The cut is deep, obviously, but it isn’t too bad. It’s not too swollen… it looks like you haven’t torn a ligament or anything. And the piece of glass was big, but it went in length-wise right? So it wouldn’t be considered a puncture. It’s just a cut. So you most likely won’t need a tetanus shot.”

Evan lifts his chin from next to me and nods. “That’s… that’s really good.”

“I’m going to clean it with a little bit of hydrogen peroxide, and then bandage it. I wish I had some bar soap, because peroxide isn't the best, but it will certainly do. It’ll burn though, so brace yourself.”

She opens up a little bag next to her—it’s black and white and patterned with little cats—and takes out a few cotton pads and a small bottle of peroxide. Gently, she wets a piece of cotton and brushes it onto the cut. Evan winces and reaches up to where my hand is on his shoulder, and squeezes tightly as Alana works the cotton across the ragged edges of bloody skin.

“Okay,” she says, putting down the cotton and taking out a roll of gauze and a bandage. She measures and cuts the gauze quickly, and wraps his foot like a professional, clinical and delicate. When the bandage is in place, she leans back to survey her work. “You’re really lucky that you stepped on it the way that you did. If it went deeper, it could’ve torn the ligament in the arch of your foot. We would’ve had to go to the ER.”

“Lucky,” Jared repeats.

“Shit,” Zoe breathes, crouching down next to Alana. “Are you okay, Evan?”

“I’m—yeah.” He nods slowly, face red. He takes his hand from his shoulder and rubs it across his forehead. “I’m sorry, this was horrible—I didn’t mean to ruin the mood or anything. It was supposed to just be a fun camping trip…”

“You stepped on a chunk of glass, dude. And had to get it ripped out by hand. That’s kind of badass,” Jared shrugs.

Alana’s eye twitches a little as she looks at him. “.. _.Ripped out? _ ”

“Can we go back to camp?” Evan asks quietly. “I’m just—I’m exhausted.”

Zoe nods tiredly. “Yes, please.” She takes out her phone and checks the time. “It’s three-fifteen in the morning.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but this is an average schedule for me.” I try to grin, and Jared laughs a little, but, otherwise, we’re all too tired to really acknowledge it. Alana and I help Evan up, and we take our time walking back to the campsite, carefully avoiding roots or fallen tree branches. By the time Zoe and Alana are going to bed and Jared has crawled into the tent, it’s almost four.

I’m about to kill the fire when Evan comes back from the showers, dressed in clean clothes and favoring his foot. He settles down next to me and lets out an exhausted breath.

“I know, right?” I say, and he laughs.

“Thanks for today,” he says tiredly. “This was horrible. But great.”

“Is your foot okay?”

“I mean… yeah. It’s fine.” He crosses his arms and rolls his neck, nervous before saying. “Hey… I’m… that was really embarrassing. I was freaking out, and…”

“Evan, really it’s okay.”

“I…” He stops, picking at a leaf on the ground. “Okay. Just… I don’t even remember what I said, so… if I said something stupid or… please forget it.” He laughs again, and I snicker, more of a tight breath exhaled.

As I pour water over the fire, steam hissing up, I find myself saying, “I remember what I said. I meant it.”

“What?”

I look at him. We’re so close, my head spins. In a moment of panic, I turn and set down the bucket of water, now empty, but that only leads me back to where I was before. Evan and I, face to face. His eyebrows lift. His eyes are wide open, and mine are too, and I’m taking him in so strongly, the scent of him, his freckles. The planes of his face.

“You’re not—,” I start, and then have to clear my throat because my voice is fucking scratchy at all the wrong times. “You’re not unlovable. I mean it.”

He leans closer, just a little, like, I could be imagining it. But I’m not. My heart is pounding out of my chest, and then his hand finds mine, an anchor.

The night swells and falls away at the same time. Emptiness and full sensory overload.

And then. A fucking voice from behind us.

Evan and I wrench apart, his eyes as wide as saucers, face bright red, and mine narrowed in annoyance.

It’s Jared. But then he speaks, and his voice sounds so worried that I almost forgive him. 

“Connor?” He says, quiet. “Someone’s texting you. I—uh. I didn't mean to read it it but—,”

The world falls away from me in a completely different way. 

Yeah, maybe not forgiveness.

“So you read my texts?” I growl.

He gives a shallow nod, looking disturbed. Evan’s stalk still. “I wasn’t trying to intrude. Your phone lit up. And… someone’s threatening you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh damn
> 
> not betaread, so please point out any spelling errors, etc..  
> kudos and comments make my day!
> 
> Also! Check out my one-shot requests fic. I need requests to write!


	24. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are more complicated then they seem.

_ When you were a kid, did you ever have one of those nights? The kind where you had trouble sleeping, like, maybe you were sick and couldn’t breathe through your nose, or had a stomach ache, or a headache, or just something. And you got up out of your bed to sit on the living room couch, thinking that eleven p.m. was  _ so  _ late in the night that morning  _ must  _ be coming soon. _

_ The kind of night where it really, really was horrible, but you knew that once you fell asleep, everything would be okay? Like, you’d wake up the next morning and the headache would be gone, or your stomach wouldn’t hurt anymore? You could just watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat a bowl of cereal like it never happened? _

_ I’m bringing this up because, until now, this has been a whole lot of narrative. It’s been  _ easy.  _ There have been rough parts and sad parts and parts where I’ve found the words that I never thought I’d say, but that’s the point—the fact that I even found them at all is amazing. _

_ Not all of it is easy though. Sometimes the headaches don’t go away overnight. _

_ \-- _

I’d say that the first night away from home on the camping trip is the worst night of sleep that I’ve ever gotten, but there’s a major flaw in that. It’d be assuming that I got any sleep at all.

I’m curled with my back to Connor and Jared, facing the fabric of the wall of the tent, eyes so wide open that they hurt. My head is pounding and my foot is aching and the spot on my cheek where I’ve been chewing at is pulsing with little bouts of pain, and that isn't helping with the headache, either. I would listen to music, now that we all know that Jared has a hotspot, but I don’t want my phone to die.

That’s the culprit of this whole mess of anxiety: his hotspot. Something so stupid and simple, and now my brain is looping and buzzing as if I could blip out of existence at any second, as if the metaphorical seat belt of  _ Evan Hansen’s Psyche  _ has gotten stuck and is constricting me and all I can do is shrink back as far as I can in hopes that it’ll come loose.

Well. The hotspot isn’t to blame for  _ all  _ of it, just for a pretty big part of it.

The other side of my thought loop is taken up by the fact that I like Connor, and Connor is a guy, and that means I like a guy. _ Like that. _ And Connor might like me too, or maybe I’m just reading into it, reading way too far into it like I always seem to do—but he did put his hand on mine. And we did look at each other in front of the just put-out fire, the smoke curling everywhere, and his eyes were flickering closed—his eyelashes doing that fluttering thing—and we were  _ definitely  _ leaning closer to one another and we kind-of sort-of maybe been about to  _ kiss. _

And Jared came out of the tent—did he see? Just the thought of it makes my ears start rushing and I have to pull my knees closer to my chest just to keep myself breathing steadily.

But the hotspot.

Apparently, Connor’s phone auto-connected to it, and while Jared was trying to sleep, it kept lighting up with missed messages. Jared, being Jared, went to put the phone on silent and ‘accidentally’ read them.

It probably was an accident. I should give him more credit.

And Connor’s being blackmailed with some knowledge that I don’t know about. I can see him in my head, the memory from an hour or so ago; he pulls back from me, rips his phone from Jared’s hand. Demands about the internet,  _ what do you mean I’m getting texts, there’s no service— _ Jared digs around in the tent and pulls out his little hotspot that my mom got him for Christmas years ago.

Connor opens his phone, face in-between shame and fear and curiosity and anger, and I’m just sitting there, trying to pretend that his face wasn’t just an inch away from mine, that his eyes weren’t just staring right through me, that we weren’t just sharing breath.

There isn’t any conversation after that. He walks off into the trees. Jared looks at me; he doesn’t have glasses on, his face tired, like he’s just wrenched himself out of sleep, and he looks apprehensive, as if he knows he’s just made himself the catalyst of some future explosion.

Earlier… if Jared saw anything between Connor and I, though, he didn’t say it. I stood and walked to the tent like a zombie, he followed me. Silence. Connor came in after, like, ten minutes. 

And now I’m here. And the ground is scratchy under the thick nylon of the tent floor, and it’s hot in here, despite it being cold outside. My hands and feet are sweating, and that’s making the bandage itch, but I can’t touch it because it still is flaring with pain.

I don’t sleep.

Because if Connor’s being threatened, why hasn’t he told me? Especially after I told him about the tree, that day in the forest? And now, after we almost kissed? Is that… does that count? Because if he’s close enough to—to  _ want…  _ to kiss me? Wouldn’t he tell me what’s going on? 

And I’ve… I’ve seen the scars on his wrists. I’ve never asked, though, because it felt like an unspoken rule and  _ why  _ bring something like that up?

And that’s just what they  _ are— _ scars. Never red or angry or scabbed. Or, at least, I haven’t  _ seen  _ them like that. If I knew that Connor was actively hurting himself, I would…  _ say  _ something.  _ Something. _

I forgo rest and instead chase myself around in circles while Jared snores softly behind me. Connor hasn’t told me what’s going on, and something about that feels unfair, because… of us. Are we even an us? And I wonder, what are we? What are we, anyway?

I don’t sleep.

The tent has little mesh windows near the ceiling, and I watch the sky slowly turn from black to grey to silver, and then I crawl out as quietly as I can, trying not to disturb Connor and Jared.

It’s cold outside, and the temperature makes my foot ache even more. I’m overcome by that weird, no-sleep scratchy throat feeling. My head spins when I stand up all the way, and I stumble over to the ashes of the campfire and sit myself down with my phone in front of me.

It’s connected to Jared’s hotspot, too. I swipe up and quickly turn the brightness all the way down, my head flaring with the sudden light, and then, bleary-eyed, take a breath and open Safari.

And it’s… it’s kind of stupid, but this is what Google’s for, right? Like, who else am I going to ask? Not Jared.  _ Not Connor.  _ If anyone, Alana seems like she’d make the least of a deal out of it, but I wouldn’t want her to think that I’m asking her because I think that she has experience or something—

Another breath. It’s cold, and Connor’s Spider-man blanket is abandoned next to the ashes of the campfire where he was sitting last night. Still, it feels weird to even touch it,  _ especially  _ after last night.

I turn my attention back to the search engine and actually look both ways before typing  _ How can I tell if I’m not straight? _

It takes me scrolling halfway through a Healthline article before I blink at the phone screen and realize  _ what the hell?  _ and look away, squinting. 

I don’t think I’m… gay. A hundred per-cent. Because, I mean, I like— _ liked— _ Zoe. At least, I think I did. I felt the butterfly chest feeling sometimes and I just kept thinking… I thought a lot about what it’d be like to be her girlfriend. To hold her hand whenever I want, and kiss her. And that felt real.

But Connor. 

And then all of these thoughts start flooding to me, like, when I was at his house for the Watership Down project, him leaning down to unknot my shoes. Sketching his profile. His hands resting on mine as we practiced piano. Drinking from his coffee cup downtown and seeing him as he tried on the button-down moth shirt. In his car, before the Halloween party. He runs a thumb through his face paint, and then presses it against my nose. I can feel the weight of him sleeping against my shoulder, just yesterday.

“Hey.”

I startle so hard that the phone flies out of my hand and lands on the dirt in front of me. I scramble to pick it up, and my hands are shaking so hard that I have to try and close the tab three times before I actually get it to. I turn to see Jared coming out of the tent, squinting behind his glasses, hair characteristically messy.

“H-hey,” I say, and my face is actually _exuding heat._ “Good, um… morning.”

He makes a face and comes to sit next to me, DS in hand. “Am I interrupting something?”

I swallow, set the phone face down by my thigh, and scratch the back of my neck. “What? No, no, you’re… not.”

He gives me a weird look and settles down across from me, flipping open the cover of the DS, rubbing at his eyes. “Okay, then. I’m not going to ask.”

We don’t say anything for a little bit, and it’s quiet except for the clicking of the DS buttons. I open my phone, glancing up to make sure Jared’s still focused on his Pokemon, and reopen the article, because  _ maybe  _ it’ll help,  _ maybe.  _ For once.

Because Google isn’t the answer to everything. All of the hard questions, the most important ones, are the kind you can’t search up, like,  _ if my friend and I have been holding hands and we almost kissed but nothing really happened, does that make us friends still?  _ Or,  _ if your close-friend and maybe more is keeping things from you, does that mean they don’t trust you, and did you do anything to make them not trust you?  _

But Google  _ can _ help with this, just a little. It won’t give me the answer, but it’ll make it a little more clear… won’t it?

It takes five minutes to finish the article, and it kind of doesn’t really help because even as I’m reading my brain is whirring so fast that I barely process the words. I close my phone and lean down, resting my arms and head on my knees.

“You good? You look like death.”

“Didn’t sleep last night,” I mutter, letting my shoulders fall with an exhale.

“Well, that sucks. Look on the bright side. Maybe Alana’ll let you stay behind on her bird watching tour.”

My voice is still muffled by the fabric of my shirt when I say, “I have nothing against bird watching.”

“And I have nothing against Alana,” he replies, “but some things are just meant to be skipped.”

“Jared?” He doesn’t answer but I know he’s listening. “What… what did the texts say last night?”

And it’s the perfect opportunity for him to make some comment on how I must be prying, or  _ something,  _ but instead he just says, “I… I don’t know. I didn’t mean to read them. I wasn’t going to say anything but it seemed like I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t.”

He can’t see my face from the angle that I’m laying at, but my eyebrows go up anyways. 

“It was from an anonymous number, and I just saw some shit written about Zoe. It wasn’t in detail, I don’t even know what it said. And then it said, like,  _ ‘December,’  _ and ‘ _ or you’re done for’.” _

I close my eyes, feeling the painful pulse behind them flare. “Oh.”

“I don’t know,” he says again. “I hope it’s not anything bad. Maybe it’s like, his dealer, or something.” It’s an attempt at a joke, but neither of us laugh.

\--

It’s not until ten that everyone’s awake. Alana’s up shortly after Jared, coming out of the tent bright-eyed, as if she got the best sleep of her life, then Zoe, hair frizzy and arms pricking with chills. Connor’s last. He looks maybe worse than me.

And it’s not until we’re all sitting around eating dry cereal and store-bought muffins that he says, “I know this is supposed to be a fun trip with, like, no thinking or whatever? But shit’s getting in the way of that, and we need to have a conversation. All of us.”

Jared looks up immediately, freezing mid-bite into a chocolate muffin, and I just look at Connor, eyes so tired that I don’t even feel like blinking, hands wrapped around my knees. Because I guess I kind of know what’s coming—if Jared said that the text mentioned Zoe, then something must be going on, something that requires her to be in on it.

He exhales harshly before saying, “Some anonymous motherfucker has been antagonizing me over text. Blackmailing me for money.”

Alana gasps a little, and Zoe’s eyes go wide. “What?”

“Last night, my phone connected to Jared’s internet, and I started getting all of the missed texts from this number—it started texting me back at the beginning of the month.”

Jared’s way too focused on his muffin than necessary, and Alana looks deeply concerned. But Zoe’s face is slowly growing redder. “And you didn’t think to say anything?”

“Listen.” He grits his teeth. “I didn’t want to have to say it like this, but… I need help with whatever’s going on, so. Earlier this year, I was at a rehab center. Not for drugs, or anything. But that—that’s not the point, so don’t get hung up on it. It’s not even that big of a deal."

Connor was in rehab…?

“It kind of is,” Zoe says, angry. 

“Zoe—,”

“So, what? Someone’s coming after you for that? And what’s your master plan to involve all of us, huh? Like we don’t already need shit like this in our lives.”

“It’s obviously a private thing,” Alana whispers. “Does anyone else but your family know?”

Connor looks at me, and it’s a kind of apology. I almost catch myself shrinking back, surprised, because after last night, something  _ must  _ be different between us? And I don’t know the rules of that yet and—

But he just looks at me. “No, uh. I haven’t told anyone. I don’t even really like talking about it. But, at first, this person said that they know, and, like, I didn’t really give a shit, because, I mean, everyone already thinks I’m a weirdo anyway. So wouldn’t this be… par for the course?”

Jared’s still oddly silent. Zoe just glares.

“But then they said… that they have dirt on you, Zoe.”

Her eyes, if possible, go even  _ wider. “What?” _

His face settles into a scowl, and he pulls out his phone and reads, “ _ I know that your sister writes essays for profit. She has a separate email for it, and a Venmo for the money, nothing that can prove that it’s her, specifically. ...Except that I have solid proof that can be traced back to her.”  _ He pauses, looks up, and, strangely enough, Zoe and Jared are staring right at each other. Her face is the definition of terror.

“What the fuck is this, Zoe?” Connor demands. “Cheating. Writing essays for profit? Are you kidding me?” She doesn’t say anything. “And I thought that I was the bad one, too. Do you know how much our parents are going to flip their  _ shit  _ when they find out?”

“They can’t!” She blurts. “Oh, god, oh, god…”

Alana places a hand on her shoulder. “Zoe, it’s… It’s bad, but I’m sure that if there’s a solid enough reason, you won’t get into too much trouble with the school—,”

She whirls to face her. “Alana, you  _ cannot  _ tell anyone. If this gets out, I’m ruined. Oh  _ god,” _

“Zoe,” I ask softly. “Why?”

“I thought… I thought it would just—but now it’s worse—,”

“I mean, really, Zo?” Connor continues, blunt. “A separate email address and Venmo account. How, and  _ why  _ the fuck—where did all of this come from?”

Jared is still looking at Zoe, his face pale. “You said,” he says, and he has to clear his throat, his voice is so quiet. “You… said that it wasn’t going to—that it wasn’t going to be a big thing. One or two essays.”

“It was just two essays!” She bites back. “It’s not like I had a fucking business!”

“Hold on—wait,” Alana mutters. “Jared?”

He looks at her, helpless. Looks at Zoe. Connor has the strangest look on his face, and I can feel my heart racing. I don’t know how to react, how to respond. The conversation is like walking on weak ice.

“Oh my god,” Connor finally says. “You set up the Venmo, didn’t you. And ghost wrote the emails so they couldn’t be traced to her.” It isn’t a question.

His lips are pressed together, his hands curled into fists, everything about him closed off. “I—,” He looks again at Alana, who just looks so… disappointed? And he says on a breath, “...yeah.”

“Why?” Alana asks. “Why would you do that?”

Jared grimaces. “Because! I didn’t know her very well, but she needed help with something. And so… I helped. Because I needed help with something, too.”

“When?” Connor asks.

Zoe looks blank. “Like, the first week of November. Earlier this month, after the Halloween party.”

“Fuck me.” Connor gives a mirthless laugh and presses a hand across his face. “Oh, my god.”

“So… what are they going to do?” Zoe asks quietly. “They want you to pay?”

“At first, it was fifty bucks by February, and now, they want sixty bucks by the new year.”

“That’s… not a lot of time,” Jared says, “but sixty bucks isn’t a lot of money, so…”

“So?” Zoe demands. “It’s still blackmailing. It’s fucking sick. How do you think they know about the rehab thing?”

Alana is whispering. “So it’s either sixty bucks by the new year, or Zoe and Connor and possibly Jared are going to be outed for whatever.”

Connor closes his eyes. “Please. Help me figure this out. Because I don’t know if I want to just pay. Because it’s so fucking  _ personal— _ and what if after the sixty bucks, they keep going? What if it turns into a hundred, then two? What then?”

I feel sick. I look down at my hands and wonder when the happy camping trip turned around, when the web of trouble became so clearly visible, with Connor and Zoe stuck right in the center.

And then Alana looks up with the strongest look of vindication in her eyes, her arms crossed. “This isn’t right,” she says. “Like, Zoe doing the essays and Jared making the fake account already wasn’t right, but this is… this is bad. It’s extortion, and that’s a crime.”

She looks around at all of us, and then rolls her shoulders. “Alright. I’m going to law school eventually, anyway. Let’s use this as a basis, yes?”

“What?” Jared says quietly. He still looks closed off, his expression hardened. I haven’t seen him like that in… a really long time.

“You’re not paying the money,” Alana says to Connor. “We have until new year’s. So, let’s spend the rest of this weekend having a good time. One weekend. And once it’s over, we figure out who this is, and we put a stop to it.”

I look around at them, and one thing is clear.

This is definitely not the kind of headache that goes away overnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't beta read, I'm wayy too tired.  
> Anyways things are boutta get interesting, and hope you're all doing okay~


	25. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Country roadss, take me hooomeee, to the place I beellloOONNGGG

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow these summaries have gone so downhill

Jared’s leaning out of the window again, and I’d be worried if I weren’t so glad that the wind is blocking out his voice—Well. _Kind of_.

“ _Country roads, take me home… to the place... I BELONG—,”_

“ _Jared please, shut the fuck up,”_ Zoe sings back at him, and he turns and sticks his tongue out before sliding back into the seat.

It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re all back in the car, about an hour away from the campsite already. The trip seemed to pass in a blur, over before it began, and now we’re all sitting with a kind of lethargy, watching the trees go by. 

“I can’t believe we have to go to school tomorrow,” Evan says, resting his head on his hand. “I can’t take any more stress.”

Zoe adjusts the rear view mirror for no apparent reason, seeing as we’re the only car on the road. “Well, at least winter break is in three weeks.”

“I can help you with homework if you need it, Ev,” Alana pipes up, tipping the little bag of almonds she has into her hand.

“Thanks, Alana.”

“SAT’s coming up,” I say because I actually hate myself, I guess, and Jared immediately lets out a long _“Nooo…”_

“You’ll be fine, Connor.” Alana rolls her shoulders and fiddles with the volume dial, turning it down a little bit. “We’ve been practicing a lot, and you’re doing pretty good.”

“What about me?” Jared moans. 

“Well, have you been using the book I lent you?”

He slumps. “...Kind of.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Evan mumbles. He looks exhausted, has looked that way since Saturday morning. “You’ve been acing tests since grade school. It’s not fair.”

Zoe lets out a laugh. “Ha. Imagine having the SAT this year.”

“You won’t be laughing soon.” I narrow my eyes even if she can't see me because _fuck her._ She'll understand soon.

Jared crosses his arms. “Alana, can I have an almond?”

She lets out a hum of consideration before deciding, “No.”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

“We can stop at a gas station in a bit,” says Zoe. “And get snacks, gas, go to the bathroom…”

Evan buries his face in his arm. “I’ll just stay in the car.”

I look at him, and I can’t help thinking about Friday night. Since then, none of us have said a word to each other about what happened, and it’s starting to make me irritable and paranoid. I want to reach out and find some way to bridge the gap, find some way to say literally anything about it. I can’t stop thinking about the closeness of him.

Because we _were_ going to kiss. And I mean—I didn’t even know he liked guys. I kind of… kind of suspected. Nothing has ever been said, but… the way we looked at each other? It’s been too long too many times to be just… idly looking. And holding his hand—he said that it was okay at the lake, so…

So maybe I’m crazy. 

I just… really hope things aren’t weird now. 

I give him a gentle push on the shoulder and he smiles. “Come on. A pack of gummy worms, and you’ll be good as new.”

He gives a tired snicker, more of a gentle exhale, and the car moves along, so unnervingly slow and yet kind of fast at the same time.

I’ve never really liked sitting still for long amounts of time, with a few exceptions—playing piano was different for me, because I had something to do with my hands, had something to occupy my time. I was _creating_ something. But car rides, even class… the notes are forgotten as my mind wanders. I end up staring out the window in a weird frustration.

A new song starts on Zoe’s playlist, and Alana straightens. “Can I turn it up?”

None of us care. She turns the knob, and it’s some musical song that I don’t really remember the name of, but I know that it’s _Hamilton_ because it starts with that _one_ riff—you know the one? 

“Oh, cool,” Jared says, and Evan’s head immediately whips up to look at him. They lock eyes. Jared squints. “...What?”

“Since when do you…?” Evan asks, and he sounds half asleep. I almost would tease him for it. “You don’t like…?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jared replies, blinking. He’s got a sunburn across the bridge of his nose from the day we spent hiking on Saturday, mostly from his refusal to wear sunscreen like a normal human being. Evan had needed to stay back because of his foot, but Zoe stayed with him because she wanted to play guitar, which sucked, because I’d wanted to stay back too but Alana wasn’t having it.

Jared leans back in the seat and I look at Evan; I can clearly see the wheels turning in his head.

Alana sings along softly before interjecting, “I didn’t know you liked _Hamilton,_ Jared! That’s so cool!”

“Yeah!” He says, just a little too quickly. None of us call him on it, probably because we’re too tired to. “I mean, I haven’t seen it, just listened to it.”

“There’s a bootleg on YouTube I can send you,” she replies, and Zoe looks up.

“Ooh, Alana. You’re such a bad girl. Illegal bootlegs?”

“It’s a theatre thing,” she rushes. “Everyone does it. Even some of the actors. You’d be surprised how many times one person can watch a Wicked bootleg—,”

“It’s okay, Alana, we’re not gonna call the cops on you,” I laugh. “I honestly don’t think anyone even cares.”

Jared’s still looking at her. “Send it to me?”

“Yeah.” She smiles, and, maybe I’m absolutely delusional, maybe swimming in the lake has unleashed some brain-eating amoeba into my body that has killed half of my brain cells, but Jared’s sunburn suddenly seems four times redder.

The song ends. Something else comes on, and it’s just background music. We’re all pretty quiet for a while, just tired, I guess. Eventually, a gas station comes into view, and Zoe turns into one of the empty spaces.

As I step out of the car behind Jared, the cool air hits my face and I can feel some of the car-seat induced tension leaving my shoulders. The station smells like gasoline and cigarette smoke, which, honestly, seems horrifically dangerous, but at least I'm outside and not in a tiny car packed with five people.

I walk around to the other side and open Evan’s door; he’s laying there in the seat, seat belt still on and eyes half-closed.

“Hey,” I say, “Come on. We can get water or something.”

“It’s fine,” he murmurs. He runs a hand across his face and blinks hard, squeezing his eyes shut for just a second before relaxing again. He doesn’t look good. He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and just… an energy about him. It’s enough to seed a bit of worry into me.

Zoe’s at the pump, but Alana and Jared are already inside the store. “Ev, come on. You should get up, you’ll probably feel better.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t argue. He seems almost too exhausted to. Instead, he unbuckles his seat belt and stretches before straightening and squinting at the pale, overcast light.

I offer him a hand to help him down out of the car, and he gently shifts his weight to his uninjured foot.

And—I want to do something. I want to make sure that everything that I’ve felt—that I’m sure _he’s_ felt—is real. So I loop an arm around his waist, holding him close to my side, and he looks up at me, this faint tinge of a smile on his face. And things are a little better.

We start heading inside. I turn my head to see Zoe clicking buttons on the filling station, but she’s looking at us, at me. She has an eyebrow raised. And the arm thing could easily be pegged off as me helping to support his foot, but I have a feeling that she knows. She’s always had a pretty solid attention for details like this.

So I wink at her. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m completely out of my mind from exhaustion.

She makes a face and calls out, “Get me some Peanut M&M’s, casanova.”

I shout back at her—no particular words are involved, just a kind of screech—before turning back to Evan and continuing on. If he understood Zoe’s tone, he doesn’t show it. I think he’s just out of it. “Are you okay?” He really does look like hell. I push open the glass door of the little convenience store, passing an old man with a cigarette (the source of the smoke, I guess) before hurrying inside.

“Just tired.” It’s dismissive, quiet. Like he’s trying not to worry me.

“I think you’re more than just tired.”

We break apart as we head to the back of the store toward the refrigerated drinks, and he shoots a thankful look in my direction. It feels good to know someone this well, feels good to have someone know me. To have someone be able to tell when I feel like shit. “Yeah," he admits on a sigh. "I _am_ tired, though. I didn’t sleep at all Friday night.”

“Shit,” I mutter. “You did last night, though?”

He shrugs. “It wasn’t good. I’m just stressed out.”

I open one of the refrigerated doors, and I pull out a bottle of water for Evan.

“I can carry that,” he says, but I just shake my head before heading further down to pick out an iced coffee for myself. The inside door is covered with condensation, and I look at Evan before tracing my finger against it, rivulets of water running down: a shoddy, teary-looking smiley face. 

“Why are you stressed?” I make the mistake of asking, seeing as I already know.

“You know,” he says, more of an affirmation.

“Well, once school starts, we’re gonna get all of this shit cleared up. It’s fucked up, yeah, but please try not to worry about it.”

“I can’t believe Jared didn’t tell me about the essay thing. I just… feel like I didn’t know about any of this.” He looks down at his shoes, and suddenly, I feel the guilt that I’ve been trying my best to ignore come back to me. “I should’ve known. You could’ve told me about you going to… you know,” Evan whispers. “I wouldn’t’ve judged you. I was just… I start overthinking. I can’t really help it.”

I swallow. “It’s not you. It’s… it’s my bullshit I’m dealing with.”

“Do you not trust me, Connor?” He asks, and his eyes are red, and I realize how much of a fucking _asshole_ I am for not bringing this up sooner. Because he told me about the tree— _especially_ because he told me about the tree. He handed me his trust, and I never reciprocated.

I close the door, tuck the bottle of iced coffee under my arm and step to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you.” I try to push all of my sincerity into those words. “Really. I do. It’s just… it’s been hard to even think about. You know what I mean?”

He nods, and we start heading to the chip aisle. 

“I was trying not to even acknowledge it. But this… texting shit has brought it up. I don’t know why the hell it’s happening, but… at least it’s gotten me to think about it.”

Evan picks a bag of sour cream and onion Lay’s from the shelf and hands it to me, next to the bag of salt and vinegar that I have picked out. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” He smiles detachedly at the irony of it, because isn’t it me usually saying that to him?

“I know. But I owe it to you.”

And he pauses… he looks like he doesn’t know how to respond. And then he takes my hand. There’s a brief moment of worry that goes through his features, but when I make no move to let go, it settles down. We continue on.

Alana is looking through bird watching brochures with Jared, who’s wearing one of those hats they sell at gas stations, the kind with kitty ears and paws hanging down.

“You’re going to get lice,” Evan says, and he makes a face.

“Nah. I bet this hasn’t been worn since the 80’s.” He has a Crunch bar in one hand and a bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red in the other. Disgusting. Which reminds me…

“I have to get M&M’s. I’ll be right back.” Prompted by the vision of my sister’s absolute wrath, I turn into the candy aisle and search the shelves of Nerds and Milk Duds before finally seeing the yellow bag that I’m looking for. 

“Ready?” I ask Evan, balancing the snacks in my arms, and he nods. At the register, I deposit everyone on the counter and pull a twenty from where it’s folded in my back pocket.

There’s a little display of items at the counter; the kind of set-ups that are supposed to entice you into last minute purchases. Stickers and that marzipan candy with the rose design printed on it. Hanging from a rotating metal display is a packet of tree-shaped air-fresheners, and, for some reason, I pick out a blue one and place it on top of the pile. 

I look at Evan out of the corner of my eye. He’s looking at me out of the corner of his. 

The lady hands me a receipt, and I hand the water bottle and packet of chips to Evan before ceremoniously offering the air freshener to him.

He quirks an eyebrow. “What…?”

“I got it for you,” I respond stupidly. “I don’t know, just take it.”

“Oh. Uh, okay.” He laughs tiredly, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Thanks.”

We walk out of the store. The guy is still smoking, but at least a breeze is blowing, so it doesn’t smell as much. Zoe’s leaning against the car, and as we approach, I toss the packet of M&M’s to her.

She catches it, fumbling with both hands. “Thanks. All good?”

I give a thumbs up with one hand and an a-okay sign with the other, keeping as blank a face as possible.

“Great. Tell Jared and Alana to hurry up. I have a Mozart remix cued up on the playlist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday week! Also, the fic just got to 2000 hits! So I'm counting it as a present ^^
> 
> I hope all of your days are absolutely fantastic. Thank you again for all of the support. Wednesdays are literally my favorite day of the week~


	26. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes. Our protagonists begin work at uncovering a mystery. Things are different... but maybe in a good way.

DECEMBER

  
  


“No word of the day?”

Alana has her chin on her fist, balanced between her thumb and forefinger, and her brow is furrowed in a way I’ve never really seen it like before. She looks almost like that statue, The Thinker, if The Thinker wore a polka-dotted dress and ate pita bread and hummus. 

“Quiet, Jared,” Zoe says, speaking out of the side of her mouth as she chews. “She’s focusing.”

We’re all huddled together at our usual table, various lunches and papers in front of us, weighted down to the table with water bottles and phones against the wind. December has come almost as quickly as November went, and there’s that feeling in the air, the notion that Christmas is coming, New Year’s… snow and hot chocolate and fairy lights. It’s cheerful and cold and still, but underneath it all is the anxiety.

New Year’s is the deadline. We need to find out who’s blackmailing the Murphy’s.

Connor looks up from where his face is buried in a math assignment and looks at me. He’s been more stressed than usual lately, of course—I can see it in the set of his jaw. But if he wants to talk about it, he never brings it up. Blames it on school work. “Can I borrow your eraser?”

“Yeah, sure.” I toss him the little stub of white and he catches it with both hands. I gaze out at the greyness of the cold Tuesday, chewing slowly, but turn my head back to see Connor feverishly running the eraser across the assignment. It gives way and crumples—then he’s just rubbing the crushed page against the table, not really erasing anything.

Alana looks. Zoe looks. Even Jared lifts his head from  _ Looking for Alaska  _ at the violent crunching sound of the paper as Connor balls it up, eraser and all.

He gently unwraps it, picks out the eraser, hands it back. “Thanks.”

I tilt my head. “And why did you just involve me in an assisted homicide of your Algebra homework...?”

“It’s ‘cause of the polynomials,” Zoe says, pulling her jacket closer around her; it’s chilly enough that our breaths are forming little clouds in front of us, though all of us have somehow unanimously decided that sitting at our usual outdoor table was a good idea. We’re basically all bundled up like that kid from  _ A Christmas Story,  _ except for Connor, who’s forgone gloves  _ and  _ a hat. His ears and hands are bright red. 

“I don’t know how to do them, and Alana’s busy,” she continues, adjusting her Gryffindor scarf. She has it twined around her neck and tied in some complicated looking knot at her throat, probably French. 

“I could help,” Jared suggests, putting a hand down on the pages of the book to save the page from the wind as he takes a sip from his water bottle, but Connor just makes a muffled noise and un-crumples the assignment. 

“I fucking _ hate _ math,” he says through gritted teeth. “I mean, sure, adding and subtracting, whoop-de-whoo. But who the fuck decied to involve letters?”

“Actually—,” Alana starts, but he shakes his head.

“I know it’s necessary, or whatever. I’m just venting.”

She huffs and smacks her hands down on the table, pushing herself upright. “This… this shouldn’t be so difficult.”

Shouldn’t it be? Trying to trace these texts doesn’t exactly seem like a walk in the park. But, I guess for Alana, anything’s a walk in the park compared to her usual difficulty level.

She looks out at the rest of us, face still caught in concentration. 

Jared takes off his glasses, fogging up from his thermos, and starts wiping them on his shirt. He only manages it for a few seconds before Alana makes an annoyed noise and digs a cleaning cloth out of her pocket before handing it to him. “What was that board game— _ Clue?  _ It’s kinda like that, right? Figuring out who our mystery asshole is?  _ It was Colonel Mustard in the garage with the whatever-the-fuck. _ ”

“‘Cept no-one got murdered,” Connor grunts. “And I don’t think there’s a garage in  _ Clue.” _

Alana lets out a misty breath. “I mean—listen to me. I have a few ideas. Zoe, who was that guy, the one at the party? The one Connor got into a fight with.”

Zoe grimaces, and I see Connor bristle. “Dylan Spencer?”

Jared hands the cloth back to Alana and pushes the thermos away. “So that’s his name.”

Alana’s mouth twists. “I just don’t get it. Why would Dylan blackmail you guys? I mean,  _ technically,”  _ she casts a careful glance at Connor before saying, “...he  _ won. _ What else does he want? Yeah, obviously the money, but  _ why _ ? _ ” _

“Maybe he’s trying to make sure I don’t fuck with him again,” Connor says, and Alana closes her eyes tiredly before taking a frustrated bite of pita bread.

“He’s a jock. He’s not that smart. So yeah, that could make sense, I  _ guess.”  _ She sounds skeptical, before she turns to Zoe: “You said that he helped Nathan Merrick to set up the party?”

“I did, yeah,” She replies. “I just don’t see how Nathan could have anything to do with this. He wasn’t even  _ at _ the party.”

“Whoever it is, they know about the fact that I went to Sunset Cove Rehabilitation Center.  _ Specifically.”  _ Connor lets out a groan. “This is… such a fucking mess. I don’t know how anyone _ could _ know that.”

They’re all adding on to the conversation in some way, but I’m not sure yet where I fit in, seeing as I wasn’t even there for all of Zoe’s set, sitting alone outside in the garden. At least until Connor came. I pick apart a piece of string cheese and try to think—try to come up with  _ some  _ way to help. But I don’t have anything to say. And so I don’t.

“Wait.” Zoe says, and it’s with such urgency that she immediately seems to command the attention of the table. “Waitwaitwait.”

“What?” Alana leans forward, trying to see Zoe’s face—she’s staring straight down at the table.

“Oh, my god. Wait. Connor.” She finally looks up, eyes wide. “The Merricks!”

“You’re not forming clauses, Zo,” He says, dry, “Spit it out.”

Her brow furrows. “I… can I say this? It has to do with Sunset Cove.”

“It’s not really much of a secret anymore,” he grimaces before standing up and walking a few feet over to the stone pillars of the awning. I watch him as he goes—long legs unfolding from the picnic table, breath circling his head in little clouds. He takes a cigarette from his pocket before a match appears in his fingers and he turns to strike it against the stone.

The little piece of wood snaps against the surface; it’s not exactly the best texture for clean friction. He frowns. “Oh, fuck you.”

“Go on, Zoe,” Jared urges, and I look back to see her face, which is slowly going redder.

“Okay. So.” She looks anxiously at Connor. “Last summer. We were visiting? It was your third week, or something, and mom and I were visiting you. And—I think I remember seeing… I think I remember seeing Nathan.”

Alana’s eyes go wide. “Oh?” But Connor just saunters back over, stuffing the cigarette back into his pocket. Not worth it, I guess. He looks at me, just catches my eye for a second, but I can tell it’s intentional; and it’s enough of a reminder that I’m not an incorporeal ghost that I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

“You think you saw, or you actually saw?” He says, hands resting on the table. They’re  _ bright  _ red, and shaking a little... I wish he’d put his hat and gloves on.

“No, no, I’m sure I did. Mom was signing out. I walked back to the car early… and I was sitting in the passenger seat, and I looked over, and there was this really expensive sports car. And I was like,  _ oh yeah, that’s ironic. I’m sure whoever bought that’s not the happiest person in the world.  _ And I looked in the window, and I saw Nathan. Listening to what looked like really expensive headphones. He looked like shit, actually. He had like—,” she gestures to her cheekbone. “It looked like he’d been clocked.”

“So he’s done his fair share of fighting too, I guess,” Jared says.

Alana looks rapt. “Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing Nathan,” Connor shrugs. “And I don’t know who he’d be visiting.”

“Do you know what happened after that?” I offer up in question.

“Uh…” Zoe winces. “His mom came back to the car? She was in this  _ horrible  _ orange pantsuit, I think. I was distracted by the radio—,”

“Orange pantsuit?” Connor interrupts. “Oh shit. Yeah, that rings a bell. Though it was more like… a neon vermillion.”

“That’s what orange is, you dipshit.”

Alana makes an  _ mm  _ sound to silence them. “Not the point.  _ So.  _ Nathan Merrick and his mom were visiting Sunset Cove Rehab Center. We don’t know why, and we don’t know if Nathan even knows that you guys were there. But that’s a common thread. And it’s the only one we really have,  _ other than,”  _ she looks instantly at Zoe, “the essays.”

She automatically looks down again, forehead creasing. Jared’s shuffling uncomfortably too.

“You have a separate email, and you have a seperate account for the money,” Alana states, blunt, and Zoe makes a noise that sounds vaguely affirmative. ”Please tell me you kept a record of everyone who bought from you.”

“I mean, I have their email addresses. But they’re personal emails, and not school emails, that can be tracked by the district.”

Alana snaps her fingers. “We can work with that. And we need to get on it soon.”

From inside the cafeteria, we hear the bell ring, and Connor lets out a groan of frustration.

“Oh  _ fuck.  _ This is due later today.  _ Damnit.” _

And then Alana squints before opening her binder and pulling out a small slip of green paper. “I have study hall passes from our Research teacher.”

“ _ Seriously?” _

“So you can come out of class with me later. When’s your math class?”

“Later, and then I have tennis.”

Zoe snorts. He flips her off. 

Alana eyes him. “You have to promise to actually study.”

“Scout’s honor.” 

In the midst of gathering all of our bags, we come to an agreement to meet up at some point and work on the emails. Alana and Jared walk off to class, leaving Zoe to sprint after them and Connor and I standing at the table.

“Tennis in this weather?” I say carefully. “Must suck.”

“Yeah. But the cold doesn’t bother me that much. And we stay inside usually, if it’s this windy.” He crumples up the paper again and shoves it into his bag, swinging it onto his hip, and I pull my backpack on, coming around to his side of the table.

“Okay, Elsa.”

“Ha, ha.” He rolls his eyes playfully, and as we start heading towards the doors, it seems all too familiar. Him and I on the outside patio. Before, it was during a heat wave. It was raining and I had a cast on my arm, and a drawing of a tree in my sketchbook.

This time, I reach out and I take his hand. It’s freezing cold against mine, and I can feel the warmth ebbing away from my palm and into his; I gently raise my other palm and rub them together, and he doesn’t pull away, just laughs and smiles, and soon we’re inside the mostly empty cafeteria, heading to class.

“Do you want to come over after school tomorrow to practice piano?” He asks. “We’ve been kind of off-and-on about it. If we work on it now, you’ll probably be able to cross it off of the list by Christmas.”

“Sounds good,” I grin at him. “I still can’t believe the bucket list is, like, actually happening? It’s… different. Not really my forte.”

He barks a laugh, sudden. “Look at you. Musical genius already.”

“I… what?”

“Forte.” 

And it takes a while for me to get it, but when I do, it may be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. 

We walk together. It’s the same, but different. 

And this time, different is kind of good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, aggressively typing fanfiction while wearing a sheet mask: S E L F C A R E


	27. Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe makes a suggestion. Connor uses his voice in a way that's much easier than usual.

Mom’s upstairs on a conference call; she’s supposedly on her day off, but she decided to take the call anyway. I’d be mad that the house isn’t going to be empty, but honestly, I haven’t seen her face since I got home and I doubt she’s coming downstairs now.

As long as she doesn’t care about the sound of the piano. I’m sitting in the living room on the little bench in front of the keyboard. The windows are open and Zoe sprayed a shit-ton of _Glade_ earlier to cover up the smell of her burnt attempt at cookies, so it’s breezy but the atmosphere’s kind of off.

She’s at the dining room table now, _In Cold Blood_ by Truman Capote resting on the surface in front of her. She’s not very focused (keeps checking Pinterest on her phone), but to be fair, I’m not exactly a prime example of a top-notch attention span either; apparently, the shaded view of the backyard out the window is more interesting to my jittery brain than the piano keys.

I need to chill the fuck out. Seriously. Being preoccupied is not a good look for my mental health; thought-inducing rabbit holes are basically portals to other universes.

But it’s hard to play piano when my sister’s just sitting there. I wish I had a pair of headphones to plug into the keyboard, but it’s so old that the jack doesn’t fit my earbuds anymore. Progress, huh?

Instead I ask, “What time is it?”

“Showtime,” she says on autopilot, and then, “huh?”

“ _The time._ ” It comes out more exasperated than I mean it to.

She shifts in her seat to see the display on the microwave, and then says, “Five thirty.”

That’s kind of late. Evan said that he needed to head home first before coming over to finish up some assignment for Environmental Science, but school let out two hours ago, and I haven’t gotten any texts from him.

I idly press down on A-sharp.

“I hate this,” Zoe says, sniffing down at the book with disdain, and then, “You know they expect us to read this over break?”

I shrug. “Juniors have _The Great Gatsby.”_

“That doesn’t sound so bad. At least it’s not about a grisly murder.” She grimaces.

We turn back to our respective distractions. It’s kind of forced, really.

Because I thought I knew her—that’s it, isn’t it? I thought I knew her so well, and then she ambushes me with all this shit, with some secret essay writing business. I’d usually just ignore it, but it’s proving harder than usual.

She must feel it too.

Light slowly wanes through the window, and though it’s cold out, the sunshine through the pane is hot on my skin, as if the window’s acting as a magnifying glass. When I look back, Zoe has earbuds in and is staggering out of the dining room, book abandoned on the table, and up the stairs. 

I’m alone.

A quiet sigh of relief. I gently rest my hands on top of the keys, fingers drifting into a _B_ chord shape. 

I’ve never played this song all the way through before—I heard it coming through Zoe’s door a while ago and searched up the lyrics and eventually the chords. I had to learn a lot of it by ear; it’s kind of obscure.

It’s pretty—softer than the stuff I usually listen to, but not soft in the sense of not being a challenge. The piano is fast and jumpy, sixteenth notes and clipped sounds. It’s a matter of focusing and knowing how to press the pedals right so that the sound comes out sustained at some points, or short at others, almost stopped prematurely. With the pedal-less keyboard, though, it kind of defeats the purpose.

It’s always weird, the moment right before playing. Like it’s too quiet… as if the air is waiting. I take a breath and sit up straight. Might as well warm up, right?

But that’s the best part. As soon as you start playing, the world kind of just fades into the background. You don’t really worry about _anything_ besides the song, the notes under your hands, the words in your head. I sing, because Zoe’s upstairs, now. And because, honestly, I just want to. Does there have to be any other reason?

_Oh, no, not now_

_Please, not now…_

_I just settled into the glass half empty, made myself at home._

_And so I know,_

_Please, not now,_

_I just stopped believing in happy endings, harbors of my own…_

I don’t remember the words all the way, and I’ve only ever learned the song in bits and pieces, so it’s messy, but it’s nice. Nice to just focus on something. To have my fragmentations of thoughts become condensed in a much more easily understood version.

This is probably the reason why I’ve toyed around with the idea of writing my own music. Something feels so deeply clarifying about being able to put words to the feelings in my chest that are otherwise indescribable. Notes and rhythms. Like art, I guess, but invisible. Creating without the build-up. Where did I hear that before— _”solutions without problems, answers without questions...”_

But maybe it’s just easier for me to use someone else’s words. Writing is… weird. It’s hard to continue forward when you’re second guessing everything you put down. What you really need is to get into a kind of flow, but situations like that are so elusive that they basically don’t exist.

No need to worry about that, now. Just the notes, half-memorized. The song starts picking up. My fingers trip a little, but that’s fine. My back aches a bit too from sitting up straight, but I don’t notice so much.

_Oh, if you knew just what a fool you have made me…_

_So what do I do with this…?_

_This stray Italian Greyhound,_

_These inconvenient fireworks,_

_This ice cream-covered, screaming hyperactive thought?_

_God, I just want to lie down,_

_These colors make my eyes hurt,_

_This feeling calls for everything that I am not—_

My phone chirps, and I’m wrenched out of the song, my fingers lifting from the keys so abruptly that, without pedals, the sound seems to just cut out of existence and hang, unfinished, in the air.

It’s Evan:

**Hey! I’m headed over now.**

**If that’s still okay?**

**Sorry I took so long, I wanted to take a shower.**

I try not to think about said shower.

**yeah its still ok?**

**unless you don’t want to get your piano on**

**Maybe you can stay for dinner,** I add, and then flick off the piano and take a breath before standing up, awkwardly pushing the bench in with my knee. I’m headed towards the stairs to get the chord charts I drew up for Evan—shoddy, hand-drawn piano keys in black Sharpie that help him to remember hand positions—when I see my sister, sitting on the steps, on her phone.

_God._

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

She looks up at me, smug, probably for having heard my playing for once in a blue moon. “Don’t try to pretend like the music gene skipped you. I don’t care if you don’t like people hearing you play.”

I ignore her. My attempts at heading up the stairs are blocked by her leg.

“What?” It’s exasperated.

“I didn’t know you listened to Vienna Teng.”

She’s talking about the song, but it takes me a second to realize it because I’ve learned it so sparsely that I’ve never paid attention to who sings it. “I don’t. Just that song.”

She tilts her head. “It sounded good.” I don’t know what she’s getting at. She puts down her phone and rests her arm on the knee that’s currently blocking my entry up the stairs. “You know, I wasn’t going to bring this up, but…” She shakes her head, and pulls a folded up piece of paper out of her jean pocket, the manila color that teachers only use when the printer’s out of neon pink or whatever else they have stocked up to make quizzes seem more appealing.

She hands it to me, and I pick it from her fingers like a bird, not breaking eye contact with her as I unfold it. It says:

**JAZZ BAND SOLOIST NEEDED** **  
****FOR WINTER CONCERT** **  
****DECEMBER 17!**

**OPEN AUDITION,**

**ALL STUDENTS WELCOME.**

**Please have prepared a jazz piece to audition with. Auditions will be held on December 10th in the Band Hall from 4:00-5:30.**

  
  


There’s some more fine print underneath that, mostly stuff about song requirements and rehearsals. I look back at her. “Okay?”

She looks as if I’ve just questioned the most obvious thing in this universe. “ _Okay?”_

“You want me to audition, right?” I ask, shaking my head, a grimace already on my face. “Come on, Zo…”

“Connor,” she says, “We’re already learning the song for the soloist. It’s Amy Winehouse. Mr. Wolfe is experimenting with contemporary—,”

“ _At Christmas?”_

All she responds with is, “Just think about it? I wouldn't've asked you otherwise, okay? But you _can_ sing, and, I don’t know, it’s a good song and I don’t want some random kid who auditions to butcher the shit out of it. You can do it justice.”

I glare at her, and then back down at the paper. “Can I go upstairs now? Evan’s coming over.”

“Think about that,” she continues, because if my sister is one thing, she’s not a quitter. “We could invite everyone to the concert. Alana and Jared and Evan. It’d be nice. And everyone who performs is getting passes to that Christmas light festival downtown. We can ask for extra tickets for family, or something, and invite them, too. I don’t know. Just…” she pulls her leg back and crosses her arms, repeats, “think about it. Okay?”

I look back at the paper, press my lips together, shove it in my pocket, and take the stairs two at a time.

It’s not until Evan’s over and we’re practicing his piano song that I think about the bucket list. 

  
  


_Do something unprecedented._

A guy singing Amy Winehouse at a Christmas concert. The alleged school shooter singing Amy Winehouse at a Christmas concert.

Huh.

“I think I’ve finally got it,” Evan says. We’re working on the last part of the bridge of the song, which is kind of dense, and has a quick note walk-down that keeps tripping him up. Compared to the first day I started teaching him, though, it’s definitely progress. _Significant_ progress.

“You need me to play the song?” I ask, balanced next to him on the tiny bench. I’m already opening Spotify on my phone—it’s easier to work out timing and stuff when the song’s playing—but he shakes his head.

“Seriously, I think I’ve got it. Can I… I’m going to try the bridge?”

I put my hands up. “You have the floor.”

He lets out a breath, holds my gaze for a second longer than necessary as he turns, like a dancer spotting a point on the wall to keep from getting dizzy during a pirouette. He straightens his posture, places his hands on the keys. He doesn’t start directly at the bridge, gives himself instrumental buildup.

He stumbles, yeah, but it’s good. It’s great, even; and you can tell that he’s enjoying what he’s doing too. Even though his head’s turned, I can see it: he gets that same look on his face that Zo gets when she’s playing the guitar. His eyes are open, which is different, but it’s almost the exact same expression as hers in every other way: his mouth in this little half smile, this eyebrows just slightly turnt up with every accidental or dissonant note, each suspension and release.

The chords build. I don’t know why I do it. But suddenly (just quiet, at first), I’m singing it. I’ve heard it so many times over the past two or three months that the words come easy. It feels good to say them. It feels good to say them around _him,_ like I’m revealing something. I’ve kind of leapt into it blind—I hope it’s not too on the nose—

His fingers trip up when he hears my voice, but then he settles back into it. He’s smiling so widely.

_I always thought I might be bad_

_Now I know that it’s true,_

_‘Cause I think you’re so good,_

_And I’m nothing like you_

_Look at you go, I just adore you_

_I wish that I knew_

_What makes you think I’m so_

_Special…_

The notes blend together a little, the tricky little walk-down bleeding into a gliss. And then he stops. 

“You sound really good.”

I swallow. “You too.”

He turns to me, squeezes both eyes shut, and then cautiously opens one, as if he is both the terrified conductor and enamored bystander in his own train wreck. “Do you think… Do you think you could sing with me more often? Like, like with me playing the piano.” His words stumble as much as his fingers did, if not more. “That was nice.”

I nod. He’s biting down on the inside of his cheek, looking away now. Light floods through the window, illuminating his face. 

It’s a perfect moment—or it would be, if I wasn’t so _fucking_ nervous. It’s exactly what I thought I wanted with him, this kind of quiet feeling. Music is a special kind of symbiosis that’s a lot deeper to me than anything else. We’ve never really made any of it together. Now I feel like I want to run a marathon, or, like, jump from somewhere really high (for the sake of flying, not falling).

It feels like there are a million strings attached to my chest, and every single one of them is pulling me towards him. 

He rolls up his sleeves. “Run through that again?”

We’re grinning at each other, caught in each other’s orbits, now. Talking with him feels like dreaming, like dancing, like finding the right footing and finally being comfortable with where you stand. “Absolutely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs!  
> Stray Italian Greyhound - Vienna Teng  
> Love Like You - Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe)
> 
> I made a playlist for all of the songs from FWTSH! Listen [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1JV3HnPpdfVC3Fb1MvE0Bx)
> 
> Kudos and comments make my day! And speaking of days, I hope all of you are having a great one <3


	28. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super secret undercover mission time *mission impossible music plays*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't beta read, so please point out any major errors if you see them >_>

It’s first period, and Jared and I are out of class; it’s a work day in Graphic Design and my piece is already finished, but _still._

“Jared,” I whine, almost a half-whisper—it’s empty in the main hallway, and the cavernous ceilings are causing the _tap-tapping_ sound of our sneakers to amplify and echo way too much for comfort. “We really have to do this now? Why couldn’t we have waited for lunch?” I have to double my stride to keep up with him.

It’s no use. He’s walking fast, and he’s not talking much. He has the same look on his face that he gets when he’s trying to beat a level that he’s been stuck on for a while. The windows pass in the grey haze of overcast weather, though the school is warm. Too warm. I’m starting to sweat through my shirt.

“Listen,” he huffs, quickening his gait even more. We’re headed up toward the cafeteria, to the gym that’s adjacent to it and the locker rooms stationed there; it’s the middle of the class period, and the football team is practicing in the field. “Alana went through the two email addresses with Zoe and I. This is probably the quickest way to find out if any of them are Dylan Spencer’s.”

The locker room should be empty. But it’s the ‘should be’ that’s bothering me. Because how often does ‘should be’ really do any favors for you? 

“I can think of other ways,” _huff, “_ To get his email— _slow down—,”_

Jared stops, whirls. I almost run into him. 

I wince. “Why can’t we just… Does Alana know about this?”

He takes a breath, clenches his fists at his sides. I think he’s trying to appear totally chill, but his whole body is exuding nervous energy. I can recognize it, if not anyone else. “We have two and a half weeks before school gets let out for winter break. And then what? We can’t find anything out about the Merricks or the Spencers outside of school.”

“But—,”

“We can’t waste any time.” He’s moving again.

“ _Jared_!”

“All we have to do is go into the locker room, find his bag, open his phone. He should have a mail app or something. We just need to see what accounts are registered, check to see if any of them match. Then we go. In and out. Okay?”

“Why do you care so much anyway?” I find myself asking, though the intonation I hear in my own voice is _leagues_ away from accusatory. “This is… this is a lot of trouble? And what if we get caught, Jared, there’s security cameras and the coaches—,” 

My words are getting faster. Jared does me a favor and waits a second for me to catch up with him. We take a right down a hallway and pass a girl drinking at a water fountain. She gives Jared a weird look, but if he sees it, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

I swallow. Two suspicious guys booking it down a hallway in the middle of class with no backpacks—Jared should—he should say… _something,_ right?

I do damage control and flash her an a-okay symbol with my right hand. She rolls her eyes and turns in the other direction to head back to class.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Shut up.”

A hallway of classroom doors, and then we’ve made our way to the another semi-large passageway, a kind of mirror to the main hallway, but with less high ceilings. 

“I just don’t want to get fucking outed for helping Zoe with this whole thing,” Jared says, “I have my future to worry about.” And he talks like this, but his voice isn’t really selling it. Neither are his hands; he’s picking at the silicone wristband he has on, the one that’s printed with [“hip”, “hip”] in white plastic (I don’t understand either). 

Maybe it’s because it came out of nowhere, or his weird nervousness, or whatever else, but I don’t believe him. Sure, he’s worried about getting outed. But I don’t think it’s _just_ that at all.

There’s a side door that leads into the PhysEd hallway, one of the huge metal ones. Jared gets there ahead of me and holds it open, and then we’re inside the white-stone hallway that smells perpetually of sweat, and I’m trying not to think about the fact that security cameras do, in fact, exist, even if Jared won’t acknowledge that.

I’ve never been down here before, not to the team locker rooms (they have separate ones than the standard class areas). The first door we open smells horrifically of cloying perfume, and Jared shuts it with a grim look and cranes his neck around the corner to make sure nobody’s coming before trying the other door: Axe body spray, sweat. There are a few half-empty Gatorade bottles on the weird rubbery flooring. This is the one.

We slip inside, him looking around again to make sure the room is empty, and me, tugging at the hem of my shirt and _begging_ whatever may be listening above—God, the universe, _anything—_ to _please_ not let us get caught.

The locker room is set up with four or more rows of maroon lockers lining the center of the room. To the right of us are a couple bathroom stalls and urinals, sinks and mirrors; across the other side of the room, shower stalls with thick blue curtains, the kind they would have in a nurse’s office. It’s exactly how you would imagine a locker room—except maybe more foreboding, probably because we’re trespassing.

Jared and I creep along the aisle. “How are we going to know which backpack is Dylan’s?” I ask, voice wavering a little.

He has his phone open, and there’s a picture on it of a group of students in the hallway, way zoomed in. An Adidas backpack, with what looks like an oddly sexualized keychain. 

“You got a picture?”

He doesn’t answer. He still has that look on his face; complete focus. And then he seems to spot the backpack—”Bingo.”―and we’re edging into the crowded space between lockers, divided by a wooden bench. I stay towards the end of the aisle, keeping lookout—that’s the only reason I’m here—but Jared’s making his way to the Adidas bag, phone now shoved into his pocket.

He actually looks both ways before opening the front pocket of the backpack; a wad of used gum, squashed into the wrapper, a packet of protein powder, and a pen-light immediately spill out. The bag is packed to the brim.

“Christ,” Jared mutters. “This is fucking nasty.”

“What if he brought his phone with him to practice?” I worry. “What if it’s not even in there?”

“Nah, he wouldn’t be allowed to,” he responds, unfocused on my anxieties. He’s already sifting through the garbage in a surprisingly efficient manner—crumpled homework, a bitten pencil, an empty container of what used to hold Wintergreen Tic-Tacs. When he can’t find anything, he carefully zips the pocket shut and moves on to the main bag space.

There’s a sound from the hallway, the clicking of high heels. Jared and I both jump about a mile into the air and stand there, frozen in fear for a minute before realizing that a woman is most likely not going to be coming into the boys’ locker room.

Yellow Math Models textbook, stolen classroom calculator with the number _17_ sticker peeling off. A box of condoms—Jared makes face and shoves it aside: “Why the fuck do you need them at school?”—and a copy of Great Expectations with the pages all bent. And then he lets out a breath and pulls out a small silver rectangle. It’s a sleek iphone some-number-or-other, the kind with three cameras. He presses the home button.

“Fuck,” Jared mutters, “It needs facial recognition.”

“It’s recording?” I squeak back at him, but he just swipes on the screen.

“It’s not recording—,”

“You know, we could probably go to jail for this—!”

“Okay, you need to calm yourself. Please, stop hyperventilating.”

“I’m not hyperventilating!”

“You’re having considerable trouble breathing.”

“I’m not having trouble breathing—,”

“Do you need a paper bag to breathe in?”

“ _I’m not hyperventilating!”_

He flashes the phone screen at me, the familiar number pad of a lock screen staring back at me. “See? All good.”

“ _Jesus,”_ I whisper, looking feverishly back at the door we came through. Nothing. In fact, now that the high heels are gone, it’s eerily quiet. 

A few minutes pass, and Jared’s still staring at the phone.

“What are you doing?”

He looks up, lips pressed together in concentration. “I only have a certain number of tries before the phone locks me out. If we get locked out for more than half an hour, we’re fucked, because Dylan will be back by then and see that someone’s been screwing with his phone. So I’m trying to think of the top ten passcodes a dumb jock would use.”

He lists them to me: 1234, 5555, 1111, 2020, 2019, and so on, but it doesn’t really matter because he gets the phone open on the first try.

“Huh.” Jared scratches the back of his neck.

He sits there, scrolling through the phone, and the clock that’s on the wall _tick-tick-ticks,_ and I can feel the stress building in me because this all seems… off. Way too easy. 

“Jared, this is really stupid…”

“Does the guy not have a Gmail?” he puzzles quietly, still scrolling.

“ _Jared, we should go._ ”

“Oh, look. Here. It was in a folder labeled ‘shit’.”

I know I’m supposed to be keeping lookout, but standing out in the open is making my head rush, so I step in and shuffle over to Jared, looking over his shoulder; he doesn’t object. He just has a look on his face, a squint.

He checks his palm, where there’s two email addresses scribbled; I can see the smeared at-signs. And his mouth falls open a little. “Shit. Well.”

“What is it!?”

“They match. Dylan’s one of the people who got an essay.” He swallows. “Alana was right.” Jared doesn’t close the phone, but lets his arm fall to his side as he looks up at the cricket-filled fluorescent lights. “Fuck.”

I try to take a steadying breath, but the Axe is making my head hurt and at this point I’d rather not breathe than have to smell it anymore. A million warning signs are flaring up in my brain, screaming _you’re in DANGER DANGER DANGER,_ and it’s making it hard to form complete thoughts, let alone speak, but he looks so disturbed that somehow I find the words: “Alana’s… always right.”

He lets out a harsh laugh, kind of a chuffing sound, and lifts the phone back up. “His email address is ‘ _Supakilla69’.”_

Another moment of silence, and then Jared’s eyebrows furrow.

I press my fingers nervously against the meat of my palms, not quite a fist, more of a nervous fidget. “We should go now, right? We should hurry.”

“He sent an email to Nathan Merrick.”

So, yeah. We’ve already skipped class. We’ve already sneaked into the locker room, and we’ve already sifted through the quarterback’s backpack to unlock his phone to see his personal email address. At this moment, I’m not exactly the patron saint of being on your best behavior. Nathan Merrick being on Dylan Spencer’s email list doesn’t sound good, but _regardless._ This isn’t something I’d normally do, and the guilt is starting to get to me physically, to the point of not being worth investigating. I just want to leave before I end up in the nurse’s office later, eating saltine crackers and trying not to have a nervous breakdown. A _second_ nervous breakdown.

“Jared, _please, let’s go.”_

“Hold on, will you? It’s a thread, I have to scroll to the top.” It’s not as harsh as it could be, distracted. At this point, I don’t think he’s as much annoyed by my idiosyncrasies as he’s perturbed by what he’s reading. “Hey dude,” he reads aloud in monotone, “sorry about yesterday and stuff, can’t talk right now because of dad but i’ll bring it tomorrow.” He swallows. “K.”

A bit of scrolling. “And then: ‘Could you stop emailing me with this account please, I’m sick of seeing your dumbass name in my inbox. But it’s fine about the money, don’t worry about it. I know shit’s going on at home or whatever. Just make sure there’s booze for the party.”

He continues like this, back and forth: “That’s fine, I’ll bring it by Weds. if that cool,” and “You’ve got the jazz band covered, right?” and “Oh yeah. Lots of hot chicks, guitar and sax are single, not that that matters,” and “nice, and you know this how?” and “I have my methods. Though I wonder—,”

The door to the locker room opens. 

Jared and I jump, and look at each other with expressions of sheer, frozen terror. I can’t move. My heart’s in my throat, and the world suddenly seems miles under my feet, as if I’m walking on a tightrope and there’s no safety net. I think Jared must turn off the phone and shove it into the backpack, because all of a sudden he’s got his hand around my arm and is yanking me forcefully towards the shower stalls.

The only thing separating us from the person in the locker room is the thickness of the curtain; Jared shoves me into the stall before pushing himself in behind me, trying not to upset the curtain rod that’s visibly rusty… in fact, the whole stall is disgusting. There’s mold and hair and—

I barely even notice it. Jared and I press against the tiny space of wall, praying that our shoes can’t be seen under the curtain’s gap, and he’s glaring at me with the force of a million suns, basically screaming _I swear to fucking god, Hansen, if you get us caught—_

Because that’s the thing about hide and seek; when I was a kid, I always was freaking out mom and Mark because I was so quiet. I would walk up behind them to ask a question and they’d startle with, “Evan, I didn’t hear you…” I was like a ghost. About as quiet as one. 

But whenever I’d play hide and seek with Jared, breathing would suddenly become the hardest thing in the world, and I couldn’t stop myself from basically hyperventilating in whatever enclosed space I’d shoved myself into.

Jared kicks my shin and mouths _shut! Up!_

I put a hand over my mouth and close my eyes and try not to let my soul leave my body as the person _literally walks past the stall that we’re hiding in._

Silence. Jared’s pale, but I bet he’s nothing compared to me right now; I can practically see the other side. 

A backpack zips, and a locker clangs open, and then shut again. Then a spraying sound, quiet— _chht, chht, chht—_ and then splashing at a sink. Jared cranes his neck as if to try and see who it is, and I hit his shoulder, though, my arms are so weak that it’s more like a weird, like, caress, and he gives me a _wtf_ look.

 _GET BACK IN HERE!_ I try to scream with my eyes.

He peeks his head out.

He peeks his head out!

Of the stall!  
Into certain death!

“Connor?”

I nearly collapse, but Jared steps out of the shower stall to leave me to my fate.

“What the fuck?” I hear a very disturbed Connor say. “Were you in the shower stall?”

“Maybe. Yeah. Hansen’s here too. Evan, quit having your spaz attack and get out here.”

Jesus Christ. I don’t think there’s ever any coming back from this. I part the curtain with my hand, and look out into the open—there he is, hair pulled back in a low bun, eyes steely at Jared, but maybe a little softer when he sees me.

“Hi,” I choke. Maybe Jared did use the force of a thousand suns in his stare. That would explain the burning all over my body. I wish the floor would just open up and take me away.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“We—uh—Jared—,”

“We were checking Dylan Spencer’s phone to see if the addresses matched,” Jared responds, crossing his arms. “One does.” I gape at him. So, everyone else knew about his plan…? 

“That’s… fuckin’, I don’t even know how to respond to that. Okay. Good. Crime, but, I mean, that’s… kind of par for the course, at this point.”

"We were hiding because we thought you were one of the football players."

“What are… you doing here?” I ask him, because my brain decides that speaking is a good idea right now, as if that will cancel out the shame coursing through me. 

“As you know, I have fucking tennis fourth period. We share the team locker rooms because there’s only two of us in the class and usually the track team is using the other one.” Everyone at the school knows the track team’s huge. It’s kind of comical, actually. There’s so many divisions that I heard (through Alana, of course, the queen of school news despite her absence in journalism) the previous meet lasted the whole day and late into the night.

“I needed to put clothes back in my locker from washing them,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want to have to do it at lunch.”

“Oh,” says Jared, and then, “is that cologne?”

Connor looks at the tiny bottle of blue liquid balanced on the sink, then back at Jared, then at me, then back at Jared. “Yes. Is this your way of asking for some, so that you can impress Alana?”

I look at Jared, who’s bug-eyed. But it’s only for a second before the bluntness sets in—he must have, like, a sarcasm rolodex in his head, or something. “At least I wouldn’t be the only one. Trying to impress someone.” It falls flat. He looks at me. “Ready to go?”

I nod vigorously, still in my state of awaiting the sweet release of death. 

“Lets blow this joint. Seeya, Hot Topic.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. Take the nickname like a mature adult.” He’s already hustling out of the room. “Adios.”

“Bye?” Connor looks perplexed. I give him a short wave which he returns before Jared and I are out in the sports hallway.

It’s not until I’m sitting in class that I even think about what Jared had said to Connor.

_At least I wouldn’t be the only one. Who’s trying to impress someone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So kinda sad-ish news? Class is absolutely kicking my ass, so I'm honestly probably not going to be able to stick to the update schedule as regularly? But i'll still try bc I really want toooooo
> 
> Comments and kudos make my dayyy~


	29. Evan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing brings together a group of friends like Uno and chocolate chip cookies. And a nice dose of blackmail, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written in two weeks and I literally wrote this all in the span of one hour so, no it's not beta read, but I'm sooo happppyyyyy :')
> 
> This chapter has gone through many incarnations in my brain -- Connor's jazz band audition, a therapist conversation. I like this one the most.

“ _And now,”_ says a voice of great majesty as a bundle of board game boxes slap down onto the table, “The moment you’ve been waiting for…”

“George Washington?” Zoe asks, staring at her phone. We’re all seated at Alana’s kitchen table on Friday afternoon; it’s a nice house, painted warm reds and browns (except for the charcoal blue walls of the living room), kind of even nicer than the Murphys’, though it’s more modest. The chairs are comfortable, the tabletop made out of honey colored stained wood. Connor has a glass of water in front of him, sweating precipitation on the coaster that Alana had nervously slid to him when she saw it sitting on the bare surface. “I guess you really are getting into Hamilton, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Jared lifts an eyebrow at her before opening a tube of glow sticks, taking them all out and breaking them over his knee with the loudest _cronch_ Evan has heard and probably ever will hear in his life. “Board game night!”

“Jesus,” Connor hisses as Jared deposits the glow sticks onto the table, “Goddamnit Jared, you broke one of those on me—,”

He looks at the toxic-looking green liquid splattered on the shoulder of Connor’s hoodie and frowns. “Oh. Sorry.”

“I don’t understand why this is necessary,” he scowls, arms crossed. His eyes flicker suddenly to me, and they linger just long enough for my brain to process it and shoot surprise through my veins before looking away. “I mean, this isn’t exactly the most happy-go-lucky situation.”

“Exactly!” Alana’s voice comes clearly from the kitchen next door, accompanied by the beep of the oven; it’s separated by a clean looking little archway, and lends no hint to the fact that she’s a room away. She sounds brighter, more relaxed… maybe it’s some undertone in her voice. Like she’s an ironed blouse, and the creases are showing for once, just a little bit. 

Her head peeks around the archway. “We’ve already kind of come to terms with how crazy this all is. So while we’re going over it, we might as well play board games and… eat cookies, and just… relax. Christmas is in two weeks, right?”

“Y’know what else is in a couple of weeks,” Zoe pipes up, “midterms.”

Jared plops down on the chair next to me and straightens his glasses, which have slid, very Jared-like, down to the bridge of his nose. “Which ones are the big ones for you?”

She puts her phone down on the table, face down, shoulders rising a little. “Psych, probably. I’ve always struggled with history.”

“I can help,” Alana says. “You’re in World History?”

“I don’t even know,” she groans, very obviously tired. “I mean, I _do_ know, yeah.”

The oven beeps again, a couple of times as Alana’s probably setting the timer, and then she’s coming into the dining room and sitting across from Jared, next to Zoe, scooching the chair back in behind her. “Okay. What do you guys think? Mouse trap, Ticket to Ride, Monopoly…”

“Not Monopoly,” Connor says, “unless you want this to all end in flames.”

“I have Uno, too.”

Jared nods emphatically. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“Uno’s not a board game,” Zoe says, securing a glow stick around her wrist. “Why do we even have these?”

“Ambience,” he shoots back, and then, “come _on._ Evan, you like Uno, right?”

I don’t _not_ like Uno. I haven’t actually played it very often—it’s kind of a group game, and before this school year, I hadn’t exactly excelled in the friend group category—but I know the rules. In middle school, I watched Jared destroy too many kids too many times at Uno to _not_ know the rules; I was kind of like his Uno wingman.

“Yeah, Uno’s good,” I nod, and Alana fishes the packet of cards out of a Candy Land box—why it’s in there, the world may never know. Home Alana is apparently much less organized than Literally Anywhere Else Alana. She pushes the stack of board games aside, starts dealing the cards.

“Okay. The reason for this meeting, the issue on the table. We’re talking about the Blackmail Situation. Before we dive in, does anyone have any updates or questions or anything?”

“Actually, I have a question,” Connor says, raising two fingers, kind of like a salute. When Alana nods, he continues on. “Yeah, uh, why the fuck are we making this a formal thing? Why does it have to have a name? I can hear the capitals, Alana. Don’t pretend they don’t exist.”

We can all hear the capitals. The Blackmail Situation has been on our minds much too much to lack capitalization. It’s stressful, especially with winter break looming. _Especially_ with midterms coming up, even more so with the SAT after that. The jazz band concert on the seventeenth marks the final school event before the holidays. It’s a week away. We’re really cutting it close.

“I’m just trying to make things easier,” Alana sniffs, tossing a card in his direction; it does a spin across the table before he traps it with a fist against the table. My hand so far: a green 6, a reverse card, a red 9. 

“I have news,” Zoe says, “But you can’t say anything about it until Monday. Not that you would. Just don’t post anything about it.”

I fold the cards against my palm. “What is it?”

She locks eyes with Connor. “You’re in.”

He blinks. “Wait, really?”

Jared cocks his head like a dog, eyes squinting a little. Zoe just nods. “Wolfe said so, right after everyone was gone. Connor, you were literally the only person there who stayed in the same key for the whole song.”

“Fuck,” he falters, “Really? You’re sure? The audition was today.”

She keeps nodding. “It’s not that surprising. _”_

The jazz band audition! “You got in?” 

He’s smiling now, and it’s such a great sight, seeing every part of his face on full brightness—dimples, squinty eyes—that I miss the card Alana slides at me and it goes sailing off the table. “Guess so. Rehearsal starts on Monday?”

“Yeah, but you can’t let anyone know. The results are supposed to be confidential. But you’re my brother. So.” She shrugs, tilting her head as she hits her finished stack of cards against the table, letting out a breath.

Various congratulations circle the table. Somehow, Connor ends up with a glowstick diadem. Jared lays the first card.

I’m… actually pretty good at Uno. Not that I’m saying that it’s anything more than a game of chance, but… I have great chances, I guess. I’m down to three cards only a little bit in. Jared keeps eyeing me shadily.

“So. What do we know,” Zoe prompts, setting down a blue card. “About the Situation.”

“Essays,” Connor says. “Venmo. Sunset Cove. The Merricks and possibly the Spencers. Draw four, Jared.”

Jared whips his head to Connor so quickly that it looks suspiciously like whiplash. “ _What?”_

“Sorry, man. Uno. Every man for himself. Except for Evan.” He looks at me. “Alliance?”

“Don’t do it, Ev,” Zoe glances sidelong at me. “He’ll cross you.”

I nod at him, grin growing on my face. “Yes.”

“Fuck. We’re all screwed.” Jared collects his extra cards, but he has a weird look on his face. “Almost makes me not want to tell you the update that Evan and I got.”

Alana looks up from her hand. “What? Jared, tell us.”

He sets down a red card. “Evan? The honors?”

I set down a reverse card. He lifts a brow. A moment passes, before Connor says, “Go on, then.”

He sighs. “Okay. Earlier this week, Evan and I cut first period to go to the football players’ locker room—,”

“You what?” Alana interjects, but it’s a second too late, her reaction time off. Zoe places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, rolling her eyes playfully.

“We found Dylan Spencer’s phone. The long and short of it is that his email matches one of the ones that bought an essay from Zo. He has to be our guy.”

“Jared—,” Sputters Alana, “And how do you think we’re gonna, like, _prove this?_ We confront him, and what if he asks, _how did you know?_ Did you guys _go through his phone?”_

 _“So?”_ Jared counters. It’s a weak argument—he has to know that. Still, he speaks as if he’s never been more sure of something. “We’ll just say it was a guess out of the two who bought from Zo. Like, come on—He’s blackmailing Connor, so he’s not exactly a stickler for the rules. And the Merricks have to be involved. There were all these email threads… Nathan mentioned that there was something going on at home for Dylan. That’s why he couldn’t pay him back, or something.”

“Motive,” I blurt. Alana, exasperated as she is, is visibly considering this; despite the reaction time, the processor that works in her head must be on full blast twenty-four-seven. “I mean,” I swallow, “That’s a motive for needing the money, right? If he had money problems at home.”

She nods, slow, before putting down a color change card, almost unthinkingly. “Nathan Merrick at Sunset Cove, Dylan Spencer needing money. The fight at the party. The emails matching. It’s… all _seeming_ to point in that direction. Yellow.” It’s almost as if she’s forgotten the fact that Jared and I snuck out of class. “Good catch, Ev.”

I don’t have any yellow cards, and I have to draw four or five before I get one. “Thank you.” And it makes me feel warm in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on, makes my chest well up with a million joys that I can’t really explain. Because this whole thing has been kind of… ambiguous. More questions than answers. Things are finally adding up, and I’m the one who brought the conversation here—random blurting or not. 

Hmm. 

The oven beeps. Zoe perks up as soon as she hears it. “They’re ready?”

Alana scoots back in the chair. “They’re going to be hot, though—,”

“You underestimate my pain tolerance when it comes to cookies,” she replies, and starts following her into the kitchen. “Be right back.”

“Wait, I’m coming—,” Jared tumbles sideways from the chair, but looks at Connor and I as he straightens up. “Don’t touch these cards.” He points a finger at Connor. “I’m looking at you.”

Then Connor and I are alone in the kitchen; not for long, I know, but still. He grins at me from across the table and waves me over.

“Jared’s got two cards left,” he whispers. “See? You gotta say Uno before him.”

“I do?”

He nods sagely. “You don’t really get anything from it. It’ll keep him from winning, though.” He holds up his three cards. “And then I can win.”

I want to say something witty or funny or make interesting conversation, anything to fill up this quiet little pocket of alone time—not that quiet, there’s a yelp that sounds like Jared from the kitchen, probably a cookie-induced burn—but all I can think to say is, “What’s in it for me?” like I’m some weird pirate negotiator or something.

He thinks for a minute, amused looking, and then, in a lightbulb moment that shows in his eyes, he lifts the glow stick circlet from his head and gently puts it onto mine. “Boop. See? Alliance, right?”

“ _Boop?”_

He flushes a little. “Uh—yeah.” And then he’s laughing awkwardly but I’m just laughing. I touch the green-glowing diadem—take it off, position it again. “How do I look?”

“Amazing. Regal. LIke you’re about to take over the throne of the space aliens, or something.”

And just like that, the moment’s over. Alana’s back in the dining room with the plate of cookies, Jared and Zoe trailing behind her, clinking their cookies as if they’re toasting at a wedding. 

The game continues. As soon as Jared goes to place his card, I shout out Uno—a little loud, shit, but no-one seems to care. Well, except for Jared. He looks as if I just killed a puppy in front of him.

“This works out perfectly, actually,” Alana points out eventually, biting into a cookie. They’re chocolate chip, and _really freaking good._ I’ve had two or three now, and signs don’t point to me stopping anytime soon. “With the emails and the jazz band concert and stuff. Why don’t we meet with them there? After the performance. We need something first, though.” Her eyes light up. “We need a quid pro quo.”

The term is familiar, but I’m not sure where from. It’s politics. I don’t really know what it means. Jared takes a drink out of his water bottle. “A what?”

“Yeah,” Connor agrees, “huh?”

Zoe’s eye glints knowingly. “An exchange. A trade. We need dirt on them, to get their silence, to get them to stop harassing Connor. That’s the cleanest way to do it, right?”

Alana closes her eyes. “Without getting outside help from an adult, yeah, kind of.”

“That’s the next objective, then?” I ask, crunching into chocolate _bliss._

“Should someone write it down?” Jared sets his bottle down on the floor next to his backpack. “Squid whatever?”

“Quid pro quo. And on it.” Like magic, she already has her agenda and a purple Mildliner in her hand. 

“Oh, wait, I forgot to say something,” Zoe says, and she points at Connor, like she’s still gathering her thoughts, before saying, “Yeah, yeah, um. Connor’s a part of the jazz ensemble for the concert now, and me too, so we get complimentary tickets to the Festival of Lights downtown. I can get them on Monday and have them for Tuesday night… you guys want to go?”

“The one with the roller coasters?” Jared says in awe. “ _Seriously?_ Uh, _yeah I wanna go.”_

I nod at her, and she gives me a distracted half-smile; it’s the kind of thing that would’ve really messed me up a month or so ago. But now… no generator stalls in my chest, no adrenaline sparks through my hands. Nope. Just that warm, endearing feeling that comes from seeing her smile so subtly, so warmly.

It feels good.

Alana starts in on how she might have to study, and Zoe counters with how she’ll help her study for the next month if she does go, but… it’s all background noise.

I feel… good. Really, really genuinely _okay._ I’m smiling for literally no reason, but no one calls me on it or seems to notice. Maybe they're too busy being happy on their own. Maybe they're happy that I'm happy.

Connor shouts out Uno, and wins on the next round. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels like it's been forever?? I miss all you guys' comments and stuff, and I miss writing! Class has been crazy... the Dear Evan Hansen ao3 page has also been suspiciously bare, so I assume that this is the case for most people. Life is stressful as hell! SO have some fanfic~!
> 
> I hope you all are doing well!  
> Take a breath,  
> and another one.  
> Oxygen is necessary, and sometimes we forget that >o<


	30. Connor

The Festival of Lights is set up in a huge park downtown; acres and acres of displays and food trucks, roller coasters and a ferris wheel, all set up in the glow of  _ thousands  _ of glinting rainbow Christmas lights that could probably short circuit and set the scene ablaze at any given second.

Very gay mood lighting, if I do say so myself.

Jared’s literally bouncing in his seat as I pull into a parking spot (It’s actually taken us almost half an hour to find one. The place is packed), and when I kill the engine, Zoe starts pulling on her star-printed mittens. 

“Okay,” Alana starts from the back seat. “This place is huge, so I thought that we should set up a buddy system, so that none of us get lost.”

Evan: “How can we have partners—if there’s an odd number of us?”

“Well, we could always rotate. Like, have a group of two and a group of three...”

“How about we just play it by ear?” Zoe asks as I kill the engine. “I mean, we’ll all stick together, and, if any of us want to break apart, we’ll just do so in groups.”

Alana falters. “Well—,”

“That sounds good to me.” Evan undoes his seat belt and straightens the sleeves of his sweater; it’s this muted purple color, striped with grey, and has little Christmas trees all over it. He sees me looking in the rear view mirror and smiles, nervous, excited.

I look away, feeling my own mouth turning up at the corners, and lean over Zoe, digging around in the glove box for a hair tie.

“I’m riding all of the big roller coasters, for whoever wants to join me.” Jared says emphatically, and Zoe perks up.

“ _ Yes.”  _ She scoots back, making a noise of annoyance as I lean further, but getting suspiciously quiet afterwards.

I twist to see her face. “What?”

“You know… I seem to recall that riding a roller coaster was on your and Evan’s bucket list.” Her eyes are gleaming with mischief. “Why don’t you ride it together?”

I glare at her and mouth, “I know what you’re doing.”

She winks, and I just shake my head with a silent, “Fuck you.”

“We could do that,” Evan says, both oblivious and a little anxious. “But I don’t want to ride one with Jared.”

“What? Why not?”

“You’re going to ride all of the crazy ones! I don’t want to have a panic attack. Or die.”

“No one’s going to die at  _ Christmastime _ .” He laughs, and I start to tie my hair up, smirking.

“Not if I can help it.”

“Woah, slow down there, Satan.”

“Statistically, only one in twenty-four  _ million  _ die or are injured on roller coasters,” chimes Alana, the blue glow of her phone screen reflecting in the circular lenses of her glasses. “It says so here.”

“See?” Jared needles, gently slugging Evan. Zoe opens the car door and slides out, lifting her hair from under the tiny backpack she’s pulled on, and, grabbing my phone and the keys, I step out into the cold darkness.

_ Seriously. It’s fucking cold.  _ Last time I checked, it was thirty degrees, and that was around noon. 

Once we’ve all collected on the side of the car, securing bags and pulling on hats and gloves, Alana has a point for us. “Okay, everyone make sure that you have a good phone charge, and that your ringer is on.”

Jared frowns. “Is this necessary, Alana? It’s a Christmas festival. Besides getting lost, what could happen?”

She only grimaces in return, her forehead creasing knowingly. “Do you know how dangerous it is to be a woman in this world, Jared? How sometimes, we can’t even walk down the street without men leaning out of cars because they can’t keep it in their pants?”

“Or women,” Jared points out. “There is nothing unrealistic like the love one woman feels for another.”

“Oh, ha, ha.” 

“Well I’m not wrong, am I?”

“That’s not what I’m saying—,”

“Alana, relax. It’s Christmas!” Zoe says, coming up next to her. “ _ Every little thing is gonna be alright...” _

“That’s not even a Christmas song—,” she protests, but her expression softens into a smile, as she winds her scarf tighter against the chill, Jared giving her a reassuring grin.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the single cigarette I left there. I’m almost embarrassed to ask. “Zo, do you have my lighter?”

She sighs dramatically and swings her backpack off of her back, digging in the pocket. “I shouldn’t be indulging your cancerous habits,” she says, tossing me the lighter. “But merry Christmas.”

“That’s the spirit,” I say to her, and light the cigarette, because… because it’s just hard, I guess. I’ve had the cigarette in my pocket all day, resisting it. But realizing that smoking isn't allowed inside the Festival made me want it even more, so here I am. 

I’m not so bad about how often I do, not lately. A lot of the time, I don’t even think about it… though once I do, it’s not easy to resist. But I’ve already been smoking a lot less… one can’t hurt, right? I take a drag and exhale, turning away from everyone.

“Hurry up,” Zoe says, putting her backpack back on. “I want to see the lights.”

“Do you think they’ll have fried Oreos?” Asks Jared after switching on the ringer on his cell and showing Alana, to her nod of approval.

“They do! I got them last year when I went with my old friend, Reagan.”

“Oh,  _ fuck, yeah.” _

“I’ve never had fried Oreos,” says Evan, shrugging into his sweater as he withdraws a pair of black gloves from his back pocket and pulls them on.

“Oh, my god.” I say, but I haven’t puffed out yet and the smoke comes out with my words. “They’re amazing.”

“You’re like a fucking dragon,” Zoe says, disgusted, but only shakes her head at me. “Evan. You’re going to find true love today. Fried Oreos are the only good thing that has come out of mankind.”

“That and the electric guitar?” 

She laughs, a musical sound. “Yeah. Sure. But I don’t think you realize how good those things are.”

A car drives by, and, seeing the empty parking space that we’re all standing in, gives a little beep. 

“Jesus,” hisses Jared, “patient much?”

“Alright, show’s over, bro.” Zoe says, motioning with her fingers as if she’s holding a cigarette. “Stub it out.”

“You do know you’re my little sister, right?”

“We’re only a grade apart.”

I give a sarcastic laugh. “Technically, it should be  _ two  _ grades.” I drop the cigarette on the ground and grind it out with my shoe. “Interesting, how much throwing that printer at Mrs. G has changed my life.” I look out at the rest of them. “If I hadn’t been held back a year… I wouldn’t know all of you. Would any of us even know each other? Who would be standing here right now?”

“You’re not littering, are you?” Alana interrupts my existential monologue and looks pointedly at the cigarette butt and I crinkle my nose.

“I always pick them up. It’s the right thing to do.”

“True Neutral Good commentary, Murphy,” Jared laughs.

“Really? Neutral Good? That’s what alignment you’re assigning me.”

“He’s Chaotic Neutral at best,” Zoe says, looking at the car. “We should hurry.”

“I don’t know,” Evan shrugs, “Neutral Good seems right.” He casts a questioning eye at Jared. “That’s… that’s someone who does good, usually follows the rules… but wouldn’t in certain situations—,”

“Isn’t that Chaotic Good?” I glance up at the sky.

Jared says, “That’s having no regard to the rules at all, following only your moral code,” and then asks, very seriously, almost  _ too  _ seriously, “ _ Would you kill someone, Connor?” _

Alana blinks. “I’m just going to keep pretending I know what you’re all talking about…”

“Guys,  _ come on, _ ” Zoe whines, giving an apologetic wave at the car and breaking into a run across the parking lot, her hair billowing behind her in dark blonde curls.

“You want me to waste a cigarette and now you make me run?” I call after her as I stoop to pick up the cigarette and the car honks again. “ _ Jesus, alright.” _

Alana and Jared have followed Zoe, and when I turn, Evan walks with me to catch up to them.

“We’re really going to ride a roller coaster tonight?” He asks, straightening the beanie that he has on, a dark blue one that I’ve never seen him in before. It’s… very cute. 

Yep.

“If you want to then we’ll do it. But if you don’t, that’s fine too.”

He nods, putting his gloved hands in his back pockets. “Are you excited?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been to one of these before. Stuff like this is always Zo’s thing.”

We come up behind the others, who are waiting in a surprisingly medium-sized line. Zoe’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, trying to keep warm.

“I like your tights,” Alana says, gesturing to Zoe. “I wish I dressed like that.”

It’s nice, because I know how much time Zoe put into picking out her clothes for tonight (over an hour and a half. Waiting for her to come out of her room took a fucking eternity). She’s wearing a floppy purple turtleneck sweater under a black overall dress. Her tights are pink and purple, thickly striped, and she’s got those dangly star earrings that she loves. It’s erratic and quirky and nothing like what other girls her age wear, but that’s kind of her brand anyway.

“I like the way you dress!” Zoe responds.“You’re so well put together.”

“Not really,” she admits. “I don’t really even think about it most of the time.”

“You must have a nice collection, then. It always works.”

“That’s really nice. Thank you.” She sounds surprised, her face in between a smile and a slight cringe, but her voice is sincere. She lifts her hands as if to tighten her ponytail, but finds nothing; her hair is down for once, little braids that reach to her mid-back. Everyone looks nice, really. Like they put in an effort. Even Jared has a collared shirt under his coat.

Something about Christmas, I guess. I’m just wearing a hoodie.

The line crawls forward, and eventually Zo turns in the vouchers for the tickets and we step into the Festival. We’re surrounded by lights and carnival games and displays and the smell of fried food; a real modern winter wonderland. Evan turns around slowly, mouth open a little, and Jared’s wide eyes are clearly visible, even behind the reflections of so many displays in his glasses.

“Okay, first order of business: roller coasters.” He says, and Evan makes a noise.

“Can’t we just… look at the lights?”

“Yeah, I want to look at the lights, too.” Alana says. 

“Come on—the lines are going to get long soon.”

“I’ll come,” Zoe says, holding the straps of her backpack. “I want to ride one.”

“We’re breaking up already?” Says Alana, disheartened. “I thought we were going to hang out as friends and... stuff.”

“The night is young!” Jared proclaims. “Come on, if we hurry, we can probably have them all ridden by nine.”

They rush off, and Alana turns to Evan and I. “Maybe I should go,” she says, looking after them. 

I shrug. “Whatever you want. I think we’re just going to walk the trail.”

She nods haltingly, as if she’s torn, and then takes off after them. “ _ Jared! Zoe!” _

“Huh,” Evan says. “I never would’ve pegged her as a roller coaster person.”

I look to him. “Do you want to get food first?”

“Sure.” 

We wander over to one of the food trucks and I ask him beforehand what he wants so that I can order for both of us; we get two bottles of water, and the fried oreos of course—it’s over ten dollars.

“Jesus,” I mutter as I pay, and the man hands us our food. 

“Sorry. I didn’t know that it’d cost so much.”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, that's how they make their money, I guess. Imagine the electric bill for this place…”

Evan looks around. “A three mile trail, with lights every inch of the way.” Quickly, we step across the main path and find a spot on the curb to sit on, cold and probably dirty, but we don’t mind. “How many do you think there are?”

“Me?”

“Who else?” 

“I don’t know, sorry, that was stupid.” I breathe out, my breath becoming a plume of white in the frigid air. “Just a shot in the dark. I’m going to say… sixteen-thousand, two-hundred and thirty-nine.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Specific.”

“Well?”

He opens Google on his phone and types in the question, and we wait in anticipation for a few moments before the answer pops up.

“ _ Over four million,”  _ Evan breathes. 

“Holy shit, I wasn’t even close.”

He shrugs. “Oh well. Close enough for me.” He reaches over as I take a drink from my bottled water and picks up one of the fried balls of dough: It’s covered in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce. There’s really no way to eat it without being messy. “Okay. I’m excited,” he grins, letting out a steadying breath.

I swallow and nod. “You should be. You’re about to have an out of body experience.”

“I mean… they can’t be  _ that  _ good right? They can be  _ good,”  _ he back-pedals, seeing my face, “but an out of body experience…?”

“Never gonna know until you try, man. Anytime this year?”

He shakes his head, smiling, and bites down on the dough. Powdered sugar floats down onto his sweater like snow, and his eyes light up as he chews, thoughtful. “Oh,  _ wow.”  _ He finally says, closing his eyes in bliss.

“Yep. My turn.” I reach out and grab the Oreo right out of his hands, taking a chocolatey bite. 

“The reason for the season,” he says. “Maybe it was kind of an out of body experience.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you! Especially about dessert. Fuck.” At this moment, the absurdity hits me; because it  _ is  _ absurd that I’m sitting on a curb at a Christmas festival eating fried Oreo cookies with Evan, and that it’s worked out this way that right off the bat I’ve gotten him alone. I feel infinitely light. 

We just sit awhile and talk; mostly about the future, what we’ll do once we’re out of school (book writing, trail-biking and the like), quoting songs, laughing, taking in the scene around us. Disjointed Christmas melodies float through the air, bells and chimes and singing, and wow, who knew Christmas could be such a Goddamn delight?

When we finish the Oreos, we throw away the paper carton and start walking the trail. It’s kind of amazing, putting aside the reluctance I had coming into this. There are light tunnels, light trees, animated light fires… After a while, my hand finds his, and about a quarter of the way into the fairground, we come to the section with all of the rides; all lit up, of course.

“Hey, look, there’s Zoe!” Evan says, and points high up to where she’s leaning, bored, still in line for one of the coasters:  _ Santa’s Sleighride,  _ according to the sign. 

“ _ Hey!”  _ I shout out. “ _ Zoe!”  _

She looks around, confused, before she finally lays eyes on us. She says something to the person behind her, and Alana and Jared come into view, waving. 

“They’re still in line,” I shake my head.

“We should wait for them,” says Evan. “But it’ll be awhile. They’re not even halfway up.”

“Well, we could ride something else.” I look around, heart jumping a little, and lay eyes on the ferris wheel, limned in golden fairy lights. The line isn’t even that long. “What about the ferris wheel?”

Evan exhales and puts a hand on his chest. “Oh, good. I thought you were about to ask me to go on a different coaster.”

“Ugh, I don’t really want to go on one anyway,” I confess. “Heights are… a thing. That exist.” We start walking toward the ferris wheel, which has long silver ramps leading up to it—our shoes hitting the metal, endlessly loud.

“They’re two person seats,” he points out. My head is spinning. I take a breath of cold air to ground myself. 

“I wonder how this all looks from up so high.”

“Probably pretty cool.”

We wait for a few minutes before someone takes our money and ushers us into a seat. I let Evan on first before I scoot next to him, and they close the side and lower the safety bar.

A moment later, the seat lurches and cold air rushes against our faces as the ferris wheel slowly starts again. “Oh, okay,” I hear myself startled to say and then try to smother my embarrassment.

Evan laughs and I turn toward him, leaning back against the seat a little and trying to be as still as possible.

“Right, so. I’m not afraid of heights, but I don’t like them either—,”

“Don’t worry about it,” he snorts, a hand against his cheek as he leans against the side of the seat. 

I barely even register what he says because the seat is now very, very high up, and we aren’t even at the top yet. A nervous laugh sneaks its way out of me, but I’m too focused on the pounding of my heart to care, trying to decide what’s causing it.

“It’s beautiful!” Evan says. I wouldn’t know. I have my eyes squeezed shut.

“Are we at the top yet? When are we coming down?”

“I think they stop it at the top.” He’s laughing again. It’s shaking the seat, rocking back and forth, and I squirm.

“Stop shaking it!” I’m trying to sound serious, but his laughter is infectious.

“Open your eyes!”

“No—,”

“We’re at the top!”

“Why would I want to open my eyes? So I can see the world as I fall to my death?”

“Come on, even  _ I’m _ not scared.”

I crack open one eye, and the world stretches under and before me, dark, but lit up in millions of tiny points of light. 

“Oh, wow,” I breathe, distracted only momentarily. “Shit. You’re right.”

“See, not so bad, is it?”

And then I make the mistake of looking down. I shrink back, still kind of laughing, closing my eyes again, and it only makes the seat rock even more. “This was a bad idea…”

“Connor! It’s alright!”

“Shit, this is so dumb—,”

“Just look at me, then.”

I’m startled a little, but the smile is still on my face. I turn my head, and open my eyes to slits, and I see his profile, staring out at the lights. His face is golden in the warm glow of the ferris wheel, his skin smooth-looking and clean in the light. He’s right—I mean, it works.

Evan turns to me. “Don’t look down,” he laughs, so joyful, caught up in the moment, “but don’t close your eyes either. It’s too beautiful to miss.”

“If we die, I’ll kill your ghost.”

“We’re sure that’s how that works?”

“You know what I mean.” 

“We aren’t going to die,” he whispers, but his voice reaches somewhere deeper than my ears. It pings around in my chest before striking my heart with a loud chime, and leaves me feeling warm, even against the cold.

“We’re not.”

“ _ Looook. _ ” He points, and I turn my head a little. 

“Yeah, it’s the same as it was before…”

“But really look. Look how beautiful it is.”

And we’re both quiet for a minute. The ground is very far away, but it’s a little easier to ignore. I look at the lights—I  _ really  _ look. And I see what he means. How they flicker and glow, almost alive. It’s kind of surreal, really, like some modern Van Gogh painting.

I turn to look at him, to point this out, but he’s already looking at me. Right in the eyes—they’re all lit up so that it’s hard to even see the color of them anymore. His cheeks are pink and I think it’s from the cold. He still has powdered sugar on his sweater. 

“Evan—,” I say, but before I can continue, he leans forward, just the slightest to bridge the little space between us, and kisses me.

Kisses me.

His eyes are closed, and even against the cold, I’m suddenly very warm because Evan is  _ kissing _ me. I gently reach up and place my hand against his face, and I lean into him, and the world kind of just falls away. It’s gone. There’s only him, and I, and the light. His mouth tastes like powdered sugar, and I start smiling which is really awkward when you're kissing someone because all of a sudden, teeth are involved and it’s strange but also lovely and I feel like I’m floating.

It’s a short kiss. He pulls away, and his face is bright and red and surprised. I think my expression must mirror his, because I’m still smiling and my head feels floaty and I’ve never been so happy, I don’t think.

And then the seat lurches backwards, and, startled, I cry out, and Evan collapses into laughter, and suddenly I’m caught up in the, again,  _ absurdity  _ of it, and I’m laughing too.

He looks at me, eyebrows drawn. “Was that… was that okay?”

As we descend, the lights blur behind him. I can only nod. I’m beyond words. I finally say, “For a while, I thought you liked my sister.”

“I did too…” He realizes what he’s said and backpedals. “That’s not what I meant—I just mean that I was kind of afraid to look at it—because—mean, if I liked her, then—I mean, I didn’t realize that—,”

“That you were kinda gay?”

He just does a weird mixture of nodding and shaking his head and laughing.“I kept thinking, oh, I like Zoe. I like Zoe. So it’s fine. But then—the campfire. And… just you. You, Connor.”

“Me?”

He smiles in response.

“Did you know I liked you?” I ask, and it doesn’t even sound like my own voice anymore. Far away. Soft. Like the sharp edges have been blurred.

“ _ You liked me?”  _ His jaw drops open, and I start laughing again. “I mean—I mean I guess I thought so… because of what happened—but—but—,”

“Are you telling me that you just kissed me without knowing whether or not I liked you? Bold, Hansen.”

“Well—,”

“No, it’s okay. It’s very okay.”

“Oh, my god.”

“What?”

“I just—I can’t believe it.”

“Evan, it was so easy to like you. It was so easy—I don’t know what else to say.”

“Really?”

“It was scary.”

“Oh, my god.”

“Okay, calm down, this is an all-ages event.”

“ _ Oh, ha, ha _ .” We sit there for a moment in a wonderful kind of charged, stunned silence. And then he asks, “What was it about me? Like—how long—is that weird—sorry, can I ask that?”

I nod at him. “It’s—it was when—I don’t even know. It’s always kind of been there I think.”

“Oh, my god…”

I shove him lightly, and he laughs. We’re rising again, the lights coming into view. 

“I knew whenever you invited me over,” he says.

“Which time?”

“For the Watership Down project.”

I bark a laugh. “Holy shit! We’d just met!”

“I know,” he says, embarrassed. I just—you drove me home. And the light—I tried to draw you. I did draw you, actually, is that creepy? Amy Winehouse was playing, I think…”

“Fuck,” I breathe, a hand on my forehead. “Oh, wow. Oh, wow.”

A moment passes, and Evan’s smiling. “Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“Can—,”

“Yes.”

I turn and lift my hand to cup his face, and then we’re kissing again, but our eyes are wide open and we keep laughing. I lean back.

“God, I’m bad at this, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not,” he assures. “I mean, I’ve never kissed anyone before…”

“Me neither.”

He looks astonished. “Really?”

“What, do I seem experienced?”

“You’re just—amazing. You’re amazing. And you’re beautiful. I’ve always wanted to say that.”

I don’t know what to say to this, which is disarming and odd. “Shut up,” I automatically respond with, and we’re both laughing again, and then I lean in and this time he has his hands on my face, both hands (he must’ve taken off his gloves), and I realize I’m shaking because his touch is so  _ gentle and warm and— _

When we break apart for the last time, my eyes are wide. “Your hands are so soft,” I say, which is kind of dumb, but he giggles, breath dissipating into pale shapes in the air. I feel breathless, like the idea has finally hit me, like the wind is knocked out of me. 

“Can we—be—together?” He asks suddenly, and then blinks. “Oh, god, sorry—am I rushing it, or—I don’t know how this works. Nobody even knows I’m—bi—or—,”

“The answer is yes. And you have powdered sugar on your sweater.”

He tilts his head in a wonderful silence as the Ferris wheel starts descending for the final time. “That wasn’t for the bucket list, I promise,” he says, “ _ Ask out the person I like,  _ or whatever. I really mean it.” 

And for a moment, time stills and sways, thick, like a vintage photograph. As if I’ve pressed pause, and I’m able to sit back and look at the beauty of the moment, admire all the work that it’s taken to get here. We’re laughing, and life is sideways and upside down and strange but for once, it’s all okay. It’s cold, but it’s warm, and it’s illuminated by the glow of four million Christmas lights.

We’re still laughing even after we leave the seats, and are walking toward the roller coaster, still laughing as the rainbow-colored cars roar by in a high pitched squeal.

And… maybe we’ll feel like this forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
> 
> I'm so happyyyy wsjfh wejskdhoawsdsuhzdAOAEzjdx


	31. EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been about a month since I updated last, and I'm sincerely sorry for the long wait! I've honestly been caught in a strange and frankly horrible state of lethargy without inspiration. I couldn't think of what to do to add on to Connor and Evan's story, how to bring things full circle, but it took that to realize that I'd already come to the end.
> 
> It's hopefully not too much of a shock to see that we've reached the epilogue. It wasn't my original plan to end the story so soon, but this WIP has been my passion project since March, when I first began drafting it, and I realized this was the best way to do it justice without hitting burnout. Hopefully the loose ends are all tied up in a satisfying (albeit a tad messy) knot for you!
> 
> Song lyrics referenced are from ‘Bright’ by Echosmith

MARCH

\--

Evan

\--

It’s Saturday morning at eight A.M. and we’re racing through the nearby woods by bicycle; well. Everyone else is racing. I’m wheezing.

The weather is chilly for springtime, and it’s making keeping air in my lungs surprisingly difficult. I brake and stop, huffing as the sky above me shines effortless blue. Why exactly we decided to wake up so early, I’m not sure, but it’s the first day of spring break and the week ahead is full of possibilities—maybe that’s it.

Either way, almost everyone except for me had some form of caffeine before hopping on the many bikes the Murphy family has and starting off on the park’s trail, leading to the summit of the local scenic overlook. 

There’s the sound of wheels on dirt, and Connor comes up behind me on his bike; then he’s doing that thing that’s the real-life equivalent of waiting for someone to come back from being away in a video game... As he bikes circles around me, I take air in through my nose and hold it.

“You doin’ alright, Hansen?” he calls, and then immediately starts coughing. As he slides his bike to a stop next to mine, we’re doing this weird wheeze-laugh-cough combo, and I have to put my hands above my head to keep from hyperventilating myself into oblivion.

“I could… say the same… for you,” I gasp back, and he gives another cough as he shakes his head.

“Turns out that smoking’s not the best for, uh, biking, or something.” He sniffs. “Man, allergies fucking suck.”

“Tell me about it…”

“But at least I’m here with you.” He reaches out and slugs my arm gently, and I smile at him, allergies and asphyxiation momentarily forgotten.

A bike whizzes past us; Jared’s standing up as he pedals, and Alana’s gripping onto his shoulders for dear life as she balances on the little foot-holds behind the back wheel, whooping as the trees rush past them. They’re gone as soon as they came, and we’re stranded at the back of the pack.

“Well,” Connor points out, “It’s just us.”

“You think it’ll… take too long to walk our… bikes?”

He shrugs. “I’m willing to waste time as long as it’s with good company.”

We hop off of our bikes—him gracefully, me falling sideways and nearly backwards—and start walking. The hike isn’t nearly as hard when you’re trying to pedal against the wind, and his hand quickly finds mine which is… awkward, seeing that we’re both trying to keep our bikes upright. I’m jammed in the back of the leg with the pedal a couple of times, which hurts like hell, but we soon steady ourselves, falling into a rhythm.

Though, by the time we reach the summit—it only takes about ten minutes, not so bad—the others have been waiting. Alana’s standing at one of those pay-binoculars, looking out into the woods, and Jared and Zoe are gravitating nearby her.

“There you are.” Zoe turns from the binoculars and Alana straightens up, looking over her shoulder to see the two of us. “We were getting worried.”

I let go of Connor’s hand to lead my bike over to the others, popping the kickstand up, and he follows behind me, addressing Zoe with a sarcastic look. “Nothing to worry about, except for maybe the bugs, the allergies, the  _ wind.”  _ He shakes his head. “The  _ fucking  _ wind, man. What the fuck?”

“This is nice,” Alana says, sitting down cross legged on a nearby bench, and I go to join her; sitting down sounds perfectly appealing, thank you very much. 

And it feels nice to just be… still. Especially after everything that’s happened; the blackmailing and the identity discovering and the SAT and the anxiety upon anxiety upon anxiety.

It’s still here, sure, but it doesn’t have such a grip over me as it did. Maybe it’s the medication. Maybe it’s just… feeling more stable. Probably both.

At the winter band concert, we all met up with Dylan Spencer and Nathan Merrick and compromised. It was probably the most nerve-wracking thing that’s ever happened to me, but Connor and Zoe stared it in the face as if they were warriors going into battle. Jared had deep-searched on the internet, looked into  _ Sunset Cove  _ archives that were definitely not available to the public.

Sure enough, Nathan’s brother had spent time there. And it wasn’t hard to put two and two together to realize that that information was most certainly on the down-low.

Nathan Merrick had not been expecting five people, but he’d met us with the same hard eye that he’d meet any single one of us with. Safety in numbers was not a concept when met with a Merrick. 

And Connor had told him about his brother. He didn’t use it as a bargaining chip, though he did most of the talking. He never once threatened to use it against him, and maybe that was a hard risk to take, but he took it. 

We’d walked away okay, but on edge. Sharp words had been exchanged. Nathan had never said explicitly whether or not he’d leak the information.

Then New Year’s came and went, and when we realized everything was intact, the rest of everything seemed to lock into place.

I asked Connor why Zoe had needed the money from writing essays in the first place, not wanting to ask her directly, and he’d just told me that she’d kissed a friend at a party—the ‘Reagan’ that kept coming up in conversation, actually—and that she’d taken it the wrong way. They’d gotten into a fight, Zoe ripped up some expensive stuff, and Reagan had told her that if she didn’t pay her back for it, she’d out her.

Sad stuff. But Zoe seemed okay. Eyes daydreaming as always, fingers calloused from forming chords on a fretboard. She’d paid the money, but I could tell from her posture, from her facial expressions, that she’d never be taken prisoner like that again.

We sit at the summit of a hill; it was hard to get up here, but I’m glad that we get to take in the view now. Looking out across the people I’ve gotten to know, I note each of them individually: Zoe, with her long hair, new streaked in indigo; Alana, button-up shirt printed with sunflowers, glasses flashing with sunshine, who realized that friendship didn’t have to be a pursuit, and could simply  _ be;  _ Jared, who’s not the most transparent, and whose words can be harsh, but who has learned that relying on people is allowed; and Connor. 

Connor.

He sits down next to me and wraps his arms around me, and I close my eyes and try to burn the moment into my memory.

Zoe points up. “Hey, look. Airplane.”

“I wonder where it’s going,” I say.

“Probably overseas,” says Connor, “a big trip. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“As long as we get to go,” Jared says, craning his neck.

Alana shields her eyes with a hand. “Actually… I think it’s coming home. That’s the direction of the airport downtown, see?”

Quiet. The wind blows.

She continues: “Who knows where they’re coming from. But the plane’s arriving safely.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Connor jokes, and Alana gives a playful glare.

“Oh, yeah. Ha, ha, very funny.”

I look at them and realize that the plane has, indeed, arrived safely. 

I’m home.

\--

Connor 

\--

There’s a thing about music; something called enharmonics. A note can be called by two different names… A-flat is the same thing as G-sharp, and so on, something to do with half steps.

I look across at my sister, who’s sitting, arms crossed, in the orange vinyl waiting-room chair. Her earbuds are in (probably some quirky indie band), and her hair is back, and she looks extremely bored—probably because mom forced her to be here. Probably because she knows she has nowhere better to be.

My sister and I are enharmonic notes; and she’s definitely the sharp one, too, always soaring a little higher than expected, trying to surpass expectations, trying to push into that perfect major chord. The family’s dissonant, and she can’t fix that. But maybe if we’re placed a certain way, if we support each other in just the right places… we won’t be unbearable. 

It won’t  _ feel  _ unbearable.

At the end of the day, my sister is a girl who plays guitar. She pretends that she has enough voltage in her to light up the world, even though when she looks at me sometimes, she’d rather shrink away in spite. People are full of contradictions, and we are exactly that, but, really, we’re exactly the same. We both want to walk away from this in the end.

After the Concert Scenario with Nathan Merrick and Dylan Spencer, things feel as if they’ve shifted into a different key. Life has gone from minor to major, and the color wheel of the sky has spun so that the blue we see goes on for a little further than how far the smoke can drift from my window. Zoe no longer has to worry about blackmail, about ripped up handbags, or her identity that she’s so deeply set on discovering.

She looks up at me, squints. I guess I’m staring. I stick out my tongue at her, and she laughs, only a little bit, 

“Want an earbud?” She whispers—in the waiting room, making any noise at all feels like a disturbance. She’s not smiling, but she doesn’t look angry. So I take the little white earbud from her and I put it into mine, and we stare off into the oblivion of a beige, therapist office wall

I was right; the song does seem to fit both the titles of quirky and indie, but… it’s not so bad.

_ Did you see that shooting star tonight? _

_ Were you dazzled by the same constellation? _

_ Do you and Jupiter conspire to get me? _

_ I think you and the moon and Neptune got it right… _

_ Now I’m shining bright... _

It reminds me of something she told me a while ago:

We’re sitting on the roof on New Year’s day, and it’s freezing cold but we’re both wrapped up in parkas so thick that we can barely move our arms. The sky is clean and dark, and Evan is next to me, his hand in mine. Alana and Jared are sidled up next to each other, and Jared has his arm around Alana in a way that’s so gentle I can hardly believe it’s from him (an odd couple, I know. But who knows how the human brain works? Certainly not me). On Alana’s other side, Zoe is leaning into her, a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. She’s the only one coming single into the new year, but I can tell that she could give less fucks; she’s starting a band, you know.

And she says: “You know, one side of the moon is one-hundred percent lit by the sun one-hundred percent of the time?”

I breathe out a plume of white and glance up at the half-full semicircle hanging above us. “Just because you have better grades than me doesn’t mean you get to straight up lie.”

“No, really,” Alana says, and nods at Zoe, whose explanation is clearly sitting on the tip of her tongue.

“So, like, the sun is hitting the moon all the time. I said that. The only reason it moves in phases for us is because it’s orbiting the Earth. So we can only see certain portions illuminated at a time. It all has to do with the sunlight.”

“Everything moves in phases,” says Evan, who is half-asleep and sugar crashing from the three mugs of hot chocolate he had earlier. “Why?”

“ _ That’s just the way it is, _ ” sings Jared. “I don’t know. Why is the sky blue?”

“It has to do with particles and stuff in the atmosphere,” starts Alana, “with wavelengths and… it was a rhetorical question.” She sighs disdainfully. “When is conversation ever going to be easy? I wish that I didn’t know anything about… anything.”

He snickers. “You get my point.”

“It’s just cool that we get our own little view of the moon,” Zoe goes on. “Just this section of the world. Just us. Somewhere else, the moon is completely dark. But we’re past that. We get to see how pretty it is.”

And here and now, sitting in the therapist’s office, it makes more sense to me than it did that night in the cold.

Everything moves in phases: I’m beginning to think that that rings more truly than I could’ve realized. Because that’s how it is with me, right? There was a time when life was completely dark, but I’m past that. I’m learning how to be okay.

From where the sunlight hits right now, life is a little more worth living.

I hear my name called and I have to swallow hard to keep myself from walking straight into the street outside out of loathing as I rise from my chair.

Mom  _ does  _ smile at me, though, as I walk away, and it gives me something my sister hadn’t. Reddish hair that I grew out of when I was nine or ten; little lines on the sides of her mouth—smile lines. I don’t see her smile that often. Now, she looks maybe ten years younger. I clench the little tree-shaped air freshener that I stowed away in my hoodie pocket and step into the adjacent hallway.

Simon the Therapist’s office is just how I remember it: it has blue-ish walls with two windows, the blinds all turned up so that the room is cast in a secluded orange glow from the Himalayan salt lamps on the desk. There’s a couch instead of a single chair, clean, made of that weird ribbed material that only couches seem to ever be made of.

I don’t make eye contact until I’m sitting down and the door is closed. When I do look up, Simon is writing something down on a Steno pad, which softens the blow a little. 

Then he sits down and there’s no more delaying the inevitable. I desperately want to do something with my hands, scribble on a piece of paper, tear at a loose thread on the dark blue cushion; I settle for crossing my arms.

“It’s nice to see you Connor,” Simon says first. He always speaks first, though, maybe it’s better that way; no time to stew in my own self deprecation. He rests his hands on his lap. 

Same crisp button up, same kind-of balding hair, same  _ Warby Parker  _ glasses. He doesn’t seem as old as I think he is—the glasses help, they’re a nice shape. Maybe Jared should take notes. 

I swallow, wondering why exactly I’m thinking about the shape of a pair of glasses when I should be diving into the deep, uncharted waters of my psyche. Deflection, I guess. “Hey,” I decide. Not too reticent. Not exactly forward either.

“I heard that you’ve been doing a little better since you’ve seen me last.” He smiles and sets the Steno pad down onto the table. He never did use clipboards—probably doesn’t want his patients to feel like they’re being studied. “So, I have to ask. Are the rumors really true? Is one Connor Murphy on the up and up?”

Still as cheerful as he used to be. “You tell me, Doc.” Returned with silence, I shift in my seat and offer, “I didn’t do so bad on my SAT. And I have some friends, now, I guess. And,” I pick at my nail polish. “I have a boyfriend.”

_ Go on. Test me. Say something derogatory, say something, anything enough to get me out of here. To get me out of this conversation.  _

Simon looks at me knowingly. “That’s great to hear. It’s good to have a support system, Connor. Last summer, when we were talking, you talked a lot about feeling isolated. Are you feeling some of that nowadays?”

I blink. I mean—I knew he wasn’t going to say anything hurtful. Of course not. He’s fucking Simon the Therapist, someone who puts gold star stickers onto doctor’s notes, patron Saint of Endearing Cursive in Florescent Gel Pen. I’m starting to wonder if the problem has been not him just not  _ meshing  _ with me, not  _ getting it _ , but my train of thought.

“Well,” I stammer, thrown off guard. “Kind of. Not really. I don’t have much off time. Lots of homework and stuff, and, uh, hanging out with my friends. I don’t really have time to feel isolated.”

Simon cocks his head. “One can argue that sometimes not having enough off-time is the problem. Being isolated within your work.” 

“It’s not that,” I shake my head. “It’s… better.”

It’s a concession, enough of a yielding motion to make him nod. 

“Amazing. Now, of course, we’re not going to jump into the heavy stuff right away. You haven’t been in therapy for a long time now, but you’re back now, and that’s a really great first step—and, by the sound of it, it’s not a first step for you. So.” He straightens in his chair, folds his hands. “Let’s talk about the good things. I want you to write a letter.” 

I lift a brow, which garners a chuckle from him.

“It’s an odd assignment, I know. It doesn’t need to be long. You can address it to anyone—God, the Universe, a friend, your mother. Even your future self. But I want you to take ten minutes, and write about the good things. Gratitude is a powerful thing.” He rips a piece of paper off of the Steno pad. “Writing letters is beneficial. What you write down never has to be sent. You can toss it after, if you want.” He crumples the sheet, tosses it into the bin by his desk—wasteful, but okay—and hands me another sheet and a ballpoint pen. 

I take the paper reluctantly. “Right now?”

“If that’s okay with you.”

I look down at the lines on the sheet, blue-tinged. A million words and none could fit there, and how can I tell what words are the right ones? 

I click the pen. Set it down onto paper. Take a breath.

\--

_ Dear friend, _

_ So much has happened, and I think it’s worth it to write it all down.  _

_ Maybe I feel like I owe it to you, so that when you start getting bad again, you can remember this and know that things get better. Sometimes it takes so, so long. You think that you’re in the dark forever. Especially when it gets a lot worse before the good stuff even comes near the horizon. But I promise you that it always comes. You have to believe it’ll come. _

_ I’m sorry— I’m not very good with writing. My thoughts are bursts of energy at best, really, and writing is like trying to take a clear photograph of graffiti on a moving train as it goes past. Everything is slow on the end of the camera, but my mind is still going so fast. My hands can’t write quickly enough. _

_ I really wish it were easy to explain to you the extent of everything that has happened in these past months. I wish I could blink and have all of the words on the pages, and you could read them and smile. But to get that far, I have to put in the time. I hope it’s worth it.  _

_ To be really honest, It’s hard to look at it myself right now without feeling unworthy of it all, and it’s better just to slow down and rethink it all through. Try my best to relive it. That’s why I’m writing to you. Like somehow I’ll find the reasons for being okay with feeling worthy in these words. But even if I don’t, I’ll still try my best to finish the story for you. _

_ I think that’s what this is. Weird right? My therapist told me that writing letters can be beneficial, especially because you don’t even have to send them if you don’t want to. I hope I send them. Even though this is so much about my own life, and it’s bold of me to think you’d care, it’s worth a shot, I guess. Someone needs to hear this. I need to prove to myself that all of this good stuff happening to me isn’t just a figment. _

_Anyways. I only have ten minutes, so... for a first letter this is a little weird. It's kind of awkward, really—But hey. At least I get to remember all of the good things that have happened to us._

_I love you._

_ \--- _

_ THE END _

_ \--- _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. Thank you for every comment, kudos, and kind word, for every time you opened the story and let my words come into your mental space. It means more than you know for someone to know that their words take up space in another person's heart, and you've all given that to me.
> 
> The end of From Where the Sunlight Hits brings with it the end of my first e v e r novel-length story, my quarantine project, something I've loved dearly for months and months, and I hope that the story has brought you as much joy as it's brought me, sincerely. This has truly been an incredible ride and it's so thrilling to know that other people have been going along with it.
> 
> I'd love to hear any questions you have about the story, your thoughts, your feelings... feel free to let me know!
> 
> Again: thank you! And may the sunlight always hit you in a way that makes the world seem just a little more okay <3


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